


Here, On the Edge of Hell

by chalantness



Series: I love you in this world (and the thousand others) [11]
Category: Black Widow (Movie 2020), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Italian Mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 68,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalantness/pseuds/chalantness
Summary: She knows her father hadn’t been lying when he said that Uncle Howard wanted her to keep an eye on Steve, but if this was simply about protection, he wouldn’t have put her on the line at all.Especiallynot with all of the heat Steve Rogers is getting from the other Families, which means that her uncle has another reason for Natasha to be involved.He just won’t tell her what it is.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Wanda Maximoff, Maria Hill/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Series: I love you in this world (and the thousand others) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/363434
Comments: 130
Kudos: 266





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mocking_words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mocking_words/gifts).



> This is less of a mafia story and more of a flirty, fluffy story in a "light" mafia setting, and it's loosely inspired by [an edit by kingslxyers](https://kingslxyers.tumblr.com/post/162313859831/aus-that-nobody-really-asked-for-1-mafia-au) \- except it's modern day instead of the 1940's and likely won't be half as exciting as her little blurb, but I wanted to take a crack at it, anyway, because I've been on a mafia kick thanks to some of my most recent reads. There are more characters to be added as we go, but most of the major ones have already been introduced! 
> 
> This will most likely be in 6 parts, though it might possibly drop to 5 or bump up to 7. I more or less have it planned out but I've already been changing things along the way with this first part so I thought I'd throw that possibility out there! I have a tentative goal of getting this done by the end of May or mid-June, but of course, there could be things to distract or delay me! I'll try to keep you darlings posted on my progress over on tumblr.
> 
> Again, I cannot stress enough how much this probably won't be the intense mafia au you've read elsewhere, but I decided I wanted to write it, anyway - and if flirting and family fluff and a dose of smut are your thing then you might enjoy this, too!

It’s been quite some time since Natasha has done wet work, but there are some things that need to be done right, the _first_ time, and Natasha rarely ever makes a mistake.

Her uncle didn’t quite ask her to take care of it, but she knows that man like the back of her hand. Johann Schmidt is too prominent a name in New York to not draw attention if he turns up dead in the ditch of a construction site, and though most hits are meant to send a message—the bloodier, the better—there are certain problems that are best dealt with quietly, and Natasha is _good_ at quiet. A toxicology report is practically nothing, not when the finest prosecutors in Manhattan have failed to get a single conviction off of evidence far more damning than a few chemicals found in a blood sample. But anyone with any common sense in the underworld will know exactly who’s behind the hit.

(There’s a reason they call her The Black Widow.)

Half an hour after watching Schmidt polish off every last drop of his laced tumbler of scotch, Natasha’s greeted by her father sitting behind the large oak desk she’s been meaning to replace. Technically, this office is still his, but considering she’s the one that spends the most time in here now, looking after the family’s restaurant – among other things – she wants to make the space feel a little less like a cigar lounge. This office looks exactly as she remembers it from when she was little and used to sit right there in that chair, reading atop her father’s knee while he took phone calls. Back then, she may not have understood the things he’d talk about – that he’d been threatening people and ordering hits while she could hear – but she knew that bad things were being done. That her father was dangerous. But to her, it didn’t quite matter. He’s still her father.

In fact, it made her appreciate him _more_ , learning that he never shied away from the truth of what their family was – _is_ – even with his own baby girl.

“Had a good night, darling?” he asks, smirking at her through the dark.

Natasha quirks her lips. “The best.” She slips out of her heels and kicks them away from the doorway, then rounds the desk, perching herself on the corner as she reaches over to switch on the lamp. “Is there any particular reason why you’re here lurking?”

If it was her Uncle Howard or even her cousin, Tony, she’d get a quip in response, something dry and witty. Aunt Maria would tease her about not needing a reason to visit her favorite niece. But Natasha’s parents, even when speaking vaguely and even when they _are_ kidding around with her, are always terribly direct.

“The family will be meeting here in a few minutes,” her father announces as he leans back in the worn leather chair, fingers threaded together atop his stomach.

She arches an eyebrow. “To discuss what?”

Natasha already has a fairly clear idea of what would require a family meeting, though her father mimicking her with an arch of his own eyebrow gives her the confirmation she’d been looking for.

Joseph Rogers had been the head of the Four Families for as long as Natasha can remember, and they all knew of the firstborn son that he’d kept hidden away in honor of the one request that Sarah Rogers made when they went their separate ways. Something in itself that had already been unheard, since no one ever left the Families. Even if you were allowed to walk away, there was always the assumption that the Families would know your every move, just in case you became a liability. But Sarah Rogers seemed to have been the exception, and Joseph Rogers had done the impossible by keeping all traces of his first-born son tucked away from the Families. No one had even known of his name until he showed up alongside his half-siblings three days after Joseph Rogers had gone missing, and no one tried to challenge his place. Their resemblance is stunning.

Natasha doesn’t expect her father to elaborate, so it catches her off guard when he continues with: “Your uncle is concerned about Steve.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she retorts. Steve Rogers had attended a private boarding school all his life, until he enrolled in the army right after graduation, and he’d worked in private security for a few years since returning to New York.

He’s practically God’s righteous man, and him simply being here on the inside of the Families – let alone being the one that heads them – is something that has put everyone on edge. The easiest answer would be to get rid of him, except doing so would sever the alliance between the Four Families that has built them into the empire that they are. Her Uncle Howard is Joseph Rogers's best friend, which means that there’s no way any of the Families could lay a hand on Steve Rogers even if they wanted to. Not without it being directly against Howard Stark’s orders—and they all know that, even with Joseph Rogers’s son taking his place, Howard Stark is the real one in control of the Families.

“Howard wants you to act as his advisor,” her father adds, and she feels her lips part, her eyebrows raising. If she’d been anywhere else, in front of any other person, she wouldn’t have let her surprise slip into her expression so easily.

Considering that Clint Barton has remained the consigliere to the Rogers family, even with Steve as the head, she doubts that her uncle means for her to take his place.

“You mean, he wants me to keep an eye on him.” She narrows her eyes, holding her father’s stare through the dark. “If Uncle Howard doesn’t trust him—”

“He wouldn’t be free to meet up with his two detective friends for a steak dinner right now if Howard didn’t trust him,” he interrupts, pausing after to tilt his head in consideration. “Though, _trust_ may be a strong word. But if your uncle had even an inkling of Steve Rogers being a rat, he’d have done something, even if he _is_ Joseph’s boy.”

“Then what does he need from me?” Natasha asks, though the words are barely past her lips when the thought occurs to her. “He wants me to protect him.”

Her father smiles wryly. “Steve has a lot of eyes on him.”

“We all do.”

He nods at this. “Yes, but he doesn’t know the Families, doesn’t know this life, and he keeps the law as his company. And before you say that that’s his problem to deal with,” he adds, and Natasha rubs her lips together, suppressing a smirking. Her father reads her well, no matter how good of a poker face she has. “He’s in the Family now. He’s Joseph’s _blood_ , and even if you don’t care for him, you’ll care for the attention he draws onto Wanda and Pietro. People aren’t happy they helped keep their brother a secret.”

Natasha knows this, of course. Never mind the fact that Wanda and Pietro grew up as mafia heirs, just like the rest of them, nor the fact that they wouldn’t be questioned at all – at least, not so blatantly – if Joseph Rogers hadn’t gone missing.

Throwing their names around is just another way people are trying to get to Steve Rogers, to get _rid of_ Steve Rogers—and Natasha is willing to bet that keeping as much heat off of Wanda and Pietro as possible is why the man must be doing exactly as he’s advised, regardless of his own morals.

Maybe he won’t be so bad at this after all.

... ...

“Who else knew about this delivery?”

Clint Barton narrows his eyes ever so slightly in a gesture that Steve has determined as the man’s one, singular tell. Even then, it’s not much, and if Steve hadn’t had to spend hours upon hours at a time in the man’s company, giving him his full attention, Steve doubts it’s something that just anyone can pick up.

Of course, Steve doesn’t live his life among _just anyone_ these days.

“It’s hard to say, but it wasn’t exactly kept on the down low,” Clint answers, and Steve blows out a breath, leaning back in his chair as he drains the last of his rum from his glass.

Steve doesn’t need the guy to add that there wasn’t a need to keep things quiet between the Families before now. Before Joseph Rogers went missing, and before Steve was suddenly thrust into his father’s place, after being kept from anything that had to do with the underworld for most of his life. It hadn’t even been until high school that Steve learned his father was even alive, let alone who the man actually was. Steve had never bought his mother’s explanation that scholarships were the reason she could afford to send him to one of the best private schools in the country, and, when he finally met his father after coming home from deployment, it made sense why his mother never hurt for money. It had been easy for Steve to deny their resemblance and to overlook their last names when Joseph Rogers was just an infamous face that made it into the papers.

Standing in the same room as him had been a different story.

“This may not be anything,” Clint says after a moment, and Steve catches his stare, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. Not once since he began advising Steve has Clint tried to downplay a situation, and Steve doesn’t believe the man would start now. He should feel stupid by putting so much trust in Clint, because that’s exactly the kind of thing that you’d think would get you killed in this life. _Trust_. At the same time, Steve is beginning to understand that that’s exactly what the underworld thrives off of: the trust that no one, not even your greatest rivals, would dare rat you out to the cops. Because among all of their gray, twisted morals, the code of silence is one of the most sacred of all.

“You think it’s just the cops breathing down everyone’s necks?”

Clint nods, lips twisting at the corner in a wry smile. “Not everything is about you, Rogers.”

Despite himself, Steve breathes out a laugh, shaking his head. It’s no secret that Steve’s got all eyes on him right now. He’d known, vaguely, that his father was a prominent figure in the underworld—but it wasn’t until the man disappeared and Steve had taken his place that he realized his father practically _ran_ the underworld.

People don’t like that he stepped in instead of Pietro or Wanda, and Steve is inclined to agree. His half-siblings who’d been born into this life and raised among the Families would’ve been the logical choices, but they both asked _him_ to head the Families, and so he did. Because no matter what Steve felt towards their father, he’d felt connected to Pietro and Wanda from the moment they met. They’d felt like _family_ , and Steve decided that if this is what they wanted from him then he had no real choice but to comply.

After all, he’d gone his entire life without being touched by this world, while this was all they’d known. It’s about time he paid his dues, and it seems that the universe is inclined to agree. Steve could agree that tonight’s botched delivery might not have had anything to do with sending him a message, except it’s among several unusual and pretty damn bold incidents in the last few months since Steve came into the picture that’ve been directed at Rogers establishments, or at associates that almost exclusively work with their family. Steve may not have been born into this life, but he’s always been pretty damn good at recognizing a threat, especially one that’s directed at him.

“Alright, you two,” a voice interrupts, and Steve looks up as Wanda leans against the doorframe of the library, hugging it as she arches an eyebrow at them. “Time to eat.”

Clint’s expression softens at the edges, genuine light twinkling in his eyes. Other than his wife and kids, Wanda seems to be the only one that can draw that smile from him. The guy’s got a soft spot a mile wide for her.

Steve knows the feeling. His little sister has him wrapped around her finger like another one of her ornate rings.

“I thought I smelt vinaigrette,” Clint says as he stands, gulping down the rest of his rum before setting the glass back down on the table. Steve stands, too, and Clint simply nods at him before he heading out the door, dropping a kiss atop Wanda’s hair as he passes her.

Wanda leans off of the doorframe and glides into the room, and, almost on instinct now, Steve glances down to see which of her mother’s shawls Wanda has chosen. It was one of the few things Wanda and Pietro kept of their mother after she passed, and Wanda never fails to incorporate one of the colorful shawls into her outfit for the day—to keep a piece of her mother with her, she’d told him. Steve’s seen pictures of the woman around his father’s house – along with a few pictures of his mother, Sarah, too – and it’s easy to see how much Wanda and Pietro take after her. If he squints, though, he can see a little bit of their father in them, and it’s like seeing a little bit of _him_ them, too.

“I already packed enough for Clint to take home to Laura and the kids, so you boys can clean out the rest.”

Steve chuckles. “We’ll try our best, but you usually make enough to feed a small army.” Wanda shrugs her shoulders cutely and Steve pulls her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry we took so long. I was supposed to take care of dinner tonight.”

“I think you get a pass, all things considered,” Wanda reassures, glancing over at the emptied bottle of rum still sitting on the table. “Should we be worried?”

Steve’s lips twitch at the corner. “No more so than usual.”

Wanda just stares up at him for a moment, holding his gaze, and he can practically see the thoughts flitting behind those big, bright eyes of her. It reminds him of his mother a little bit, the way the woman would just look at him and _know_ something was up. But whatever Wanda sees in his eyes, she must also sense that, at least to some extent he must be telling the truth, because her expression softens back into that smile of hers as she nods once, then takes his empty tumbler from her and sets it aside on the table.

“You had guests earlier,” Wanda adds as he offers her his arm, and Steve peers down at her as they leave the library.

The feigned nonchalance in her tone gives her away. “Bucky and Sam?” Steve guesses.

Wanda hums with a nod, tightening her hold on his arm ever so slightly. He thinks maybe she’ll give him the same speech that Clint does whenever the man catches either of their names light up on his phone—that having any relations with anyone in law, let alone being _best friends_ with two of New York’s best detectives, isn’t doing him any favors. No one likes a rat, and even though Steve doesn’t even know how he feels about his role in any of this, he isn’t about to bust anyone out to the cops. Not when it puts Wanda and Pietro directly in the line of fire. As it is, the cops busting a handful of deliveries in the last few months is already causing talk, and it’s no secret that people blame Steve.

His sister glances up at him, blinking slowly. Steve lets out a sharp sigh. “If you want to say something, you can say it.”

“I’m just worried, is all.”

He’s not surprised. “I can handle it,” he promises.

But she shakes her head, rubs her lips together before amending, “I’m worried for them,” and, okay, this _does_ surprise Steve a little. “If anyone gets enough of an excuse to suspect you of being a rat, they may not be able to take it out on you directly, but they certainly won’t hesitate to go after _them_ instead.”

Steve nods once, feeling his jaw tighten. Yeah, he’s talked with Bucky and Sam about that very thing before, when he’d – vaguely – filled them in on what his father’s disappearance meant. Not only would continuing to be friends with Steve now that he’s fully involved in the Families put their lives in danger, but it’ll put their careers in danger, too. Sam says that people on the force might see it as an advantage to have some supposed _in_ with the underworld to work for information; Steve hopes that’s enough to keep them from ruining their careers, but not enough to rile the Families up, either. It’s a dangerous line to walk, and honestly? He isn’t even sure if it’s possible.

But neither of them wants to cut Steve off, no matter how much he tries to convince them to do so—and a small, selfish part of him is a little relieved.

(He likes having a piece of his old life still with him, no matter how dangerous it may be.)

“Thank you for being worried,” Steve says, his voice barely above a whisper, and his sister smiles softly, eyes fluttering shut as he brushes a kiss to the middle of her forehead. “They can handle it, too.”

Wanda nods, loosening her hold on his arm as they reach the kitchen, and when she opens her eyes again, any trace of wariness has dissolved completely.

“Let’s eat.”

... ...

“An advisor?” Carol glances over at Maria, whose fingers have actually paused over the keys of her laptop to hold Carol’s stare before her gaze sifts over to Natasha, one eyebrow arching. “Considering I just spoke with Clint this morning, I’m fairly certain that Steve Rogers already _has_ a consigliere.”

“I know,” Natasha says on an exhale, propping her heels onto her coffee table and crossing them at the ankles. Maria wrinkles her nose at this, but since they’re in Natasha’s apartment rather than her own, the woman just turns back to her screen and continues typing, though she’s still listening as Natasha continues with, “Trust me, I’ve tried to squeeze the real answer out, but my uncle is being particularly evasive about whatever he may be planning.” That’s possibly what bothers Natasha _most_ about all of this. She knows her father hadn’t been lying when he said that Uncle Howard wanted her to keep an eye on Steve, but if this was simply about protection, he wouldn’t have put her on the line at all. _Especially_ not with all of the heat Steve Rogers is getting from the other Families, which means that her uncle has another reason for Natasha to be involved.

He just won’t tell her what it is.

“Is it possible that this _could_ just be about protecting him?” Carol asks, even though there’s still wariness in her tone, like she can’t quite believe in this possibility. Not entirely, at least. “Our father seems to be genuinely concerned that Steve might not be safe even from the Families, whether or not he’s blood.” Carol pauses as Natasha presses her lips together, smothering a laugh. Maria smirks. “Well,” Carol amends, lightly swirling her glass of wine around, “as concerned as Nicholas Fury can ever get.”

“Which is hardly at all, if it doesn’t have anything to do with the two of you,” Natasha points out.

Carol grins. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but Dad actually seemed… _bothered_ after his meeting with Odin last night.” She glances over at Maria as her sister looks up from her screen again, a wry smile tugging at her lips.

“Hela has done quite a lot of complaining about that botched delivery the other night,” she adds, and Natasha breathes out a laugh, shaking her head. She’d heard about that, too, and her uncle hadn’t been surprised to hear Hela running her mouth about it even though the delivery had nothing to do with her family. It’s far from the first time this has happened, which would make it a pretty damn big stretch to assume that Steve Rogers had anything to do with this at all. But Hela has always loved stirring a little chaos in the underworld and Odin has never really put his foot down when it comes to his daughter, so Natasha isn’t surprised that the woman is making a big production out of this.

“Hela isn’t stupid,” Natasha reminds. “She may be dramatic, but not even _she_ would be so blatant in challenging Steve Rogers.”

“No, but she’s never been good at being subtle, either,” Carol says. “She’s always thought that their family should be the one running the show. With Joseph Rogers missing and Steve Rogers stepping in instead of Wanda or Pietro, maybe she finally sees an opportunity.”

“She’d still have to go behind her father’s back to do anything,” Maria counters. “Joseph Rogers may be gone, but Odin wouldn’t stand a chance against Dad and Howard.”

Natasha rubs her lips together, considering this. For the most part, Hela has always been more talk than anything else. She doesn’t like to get her hands dirty – and she really doesn’t need to in order to get what she wants – but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like to get involved from time to time, which almost always results in a mess that someone else has to clean up before they have even more cops poking around. Still, if anyone is going to be reckless enough to start something between the Families, it would be Hela.

“But,” Maria adds, another smirk tugging at her lips as she looks over at Natasha, “whether Steve Rogers actually needs protecting isn’t the point.”

Natasha can’t help but laugh. “Is there another point I’m missing?”

“Maybe your uncle just wants you to be _friends_.”

Carol presses the rim of her glass to her lips, shoulders shaking with her urge to laugh, and Natasha feels herself smiling even as she narrows her eyes. “ _Maria_.” The woman just blinks at her, smirk perfectly in place. “I think I have more than enough friends. Some of which I don’t even want.”

“Oh, I think you’ll want this one,” Maria retorts. Natasha suppresses a smile as she shakes her head, happening to glance out the window, but she feels herself pause as she catches sight of the street below.

There’s really no reason why a simple and rather _bland_ black compact car parked along the opposite block should stand out to her. This is one of the most expensive apartment complexes in the city because of its advanced security system (rather ironically designed by her Uncle Howard’s most profitable legitimate businesses) and so any tenant that can afford the rent here can also afford an extra few thousand dollars for more than one spot in the garage to keep all of their luxury imported cars safe. Anyone that parks along the street wouldn’t be someone that lives in her building, but that’s hardly a reason for her to be suspicious when she notices the same car more than once.

Still, there’s something about this damn black car that she can’t quite shake.

... ...

“You know, I’m getting pretty damn tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t worry about,” Steve almost growls out, half-shoving his phone back into his jacket pocket. Behind the bar, Pietro glances over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised, surprise and amusement glinting in his stare. “Sorry,” Steve exhales, rubbing at his jaw.

“No, no. By all means, be pissed,” Pietro insists with a bit of a laugh, turning back to Steve and setting down a bottle of vermouth and another one of gin on the bar counter between them. “You know, for the longest time I was convinced Dad was invincible because he sure as hell acted like it. Nothing ever got under his skin.” His lips hitch into a grin “I know it’s what makes him good at being in charge—and you’ve definitely got that going for you, too. But I’ll admit I relate a little more to you when you sweat it out.”

Steve chuckles with a shake of his head. “I’m definitely not invincible. Not even close.”

“I don’t know,” Pietro says, pouring both the vermouth and gin into a pitcher and then stirring. “You’re holding it together pretty damn well.”

“For someone who doesn’t even know what the hell he’s doing? Yeah, I guess,” Steve quips, and he’s barely even joking. He doesn’t know how he’s getting by. Clint Barton helps a lot and so do Wanda and Pietro, but that doesn’t mean Steve feels as if he’s really getting a grasp on any of this. All he really does is handle one thing at a time.

“No, you’re doing pretty damn well, _period_. I would know, big brother,” Pietro insists, pouring the cocktail into the two glasses before nudging one over to Steve. “If you didn’t step in, I’d be in your shoes right now and I know for damn sure I wouldn’t be handling it the way you have and the way Dad always has. I’m too impulsive, too emotional. But _you_ ,” he says, tapping his glass against Steve’s, “are exactly the kind of person built to be in charge. You’re _good_ at this, and you don’t have to believe me. I’m sure you don’t.” Pietro smirks at his brother, and Steve lets out another chuckle. “All the shit that’s happening right now isn’t because you’re here. It’s because Dad _isn’t_. Trust me.”

Maybe for the first time all day, Steve feels most of the tension start to ebb from his body. He gives his brother a smile. “If you say so,” he tells Pietro, and as they take a gulp of their drinks, Steve takes a moment to glance around the restaurant. The placed is closed between lunch and dinner the way it has since their grandparents opened it, or so Wanda has told him – and despite the fact that it’d started off as another small, legitimate business to front operations for the Families, it’s become a popular spot to eat at in the city. The hundreds of tourists that come each day have no idea what kinds of things that have happened inside these walls, and, until a few months ago, neither did Steve.

He tries to imagine (and not for the first time) what it would’ve been like if his mom had chosen to stay with his dad all these years. If she would’ve been involved in the businesses the way Wanda and Pietro are. If Steve would’ve come close to being the same man he is now, even if he’d been raised in the lifestyle. Steve used to be convinced that he wouldn’t have been, but then he thinks of Pietro and Wanda and hesitates. He expected his opinion to change about them, even a little, after he’d learned the truth—but it didn’t. Everything he came to love about them when they started seeing each other are still easy for him to see _now_ , even after knowing what they’ve been involved in.

Which puts him in one hell of a hard spot. He’s not sure if he has what it takes to be involved with the Families, but now that he’s around Wanda and Pietro all the time, and even being around Clint and his family, Steve is pretty damn sure he doesn’t have what it takes to turn against the Families, either.

It’s not something he had ever genuinely contemplated after his father told him the truth, but considering he’d already known a lot about the Families and their repertoire of operations and crimes thanks to Sam and Bucky, it should’ve been easy to want to put a stop to it all. He could’ve had the perfect opportunity on the inside as the head.

But he can’t do it. He _can’t_ , and he’s not quite sure what that says about him as a person, but he’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to find out.

The chime of the door front door pulls Steve from his thoughts, and he glances down at his watch (they’re still a half hour away from opening their doors for dinner) before looking over his shoulder as Wanda glides into the room.

And she’s not alone.

He’s met Natasha Romanoff before, and though it had been quick—he’d met Howard Stark for lunch, and his niece was wrapping up in his office and walking out the door when Steve had arrived—it’d been enough for Steve to remember. After his meeting that day, he had every reason to be preoccupied with anything other than the image of the woman with endless green eyes and lips as vibrant as the curls of hair that’d been swept over her shoulder. The smile she’d given him had been small and polite, but something in the way her gaze had flitted over him had lingered in his thoughts even hours later – and, as he sets his drink down and stands from his barstool, he feels that same weight in her stare as those bright eyes traces over him again. This time, her gaze is slower, so much so that it feels almost like a palpable touch as it slides over him.

“Ma’am,” Steve greets, holding his hand out as Wanda and Natasha near, and those long eyelashes of hers flutter ever so slightly as she meets his stare.

“Hi,” she replies, sliding her hand into his in a shake. “Well, hi _again_ , I suppose.”

Beside them, Wanda furrows her eyebrows ever so slightly, glancing between them with this little smile. “Oh? You two have met already?”

“Briefly.” Natasha’s eyes flits to Wanda’s as she pulls her hand back, but then she’s peering back up at Steve, her lips tugging at the corners into a smile. “But I figured a proper introduction was in order considering we’ll be spending quite a bit of time together.”

“Right,” Steve says. “Howard did mention you would be offering your assistance, though I’ll admit I was a little skeptical about how much was _offered_ rather than ordered.”

Wanda blinks at him, both eyebrows raised, and Steve is only concerned about coming off the wrong way for a fleeting second before Natasha tips her head back and _laughs_. Steve feels his smile widen at the sound of it, and then she tilts her head at him, her lips tugging at the corner in a smirk. “And here I thought all the rumors of you being a stuffy old man might hold some truth,” she says, her eyes glinting. Beside her, Wanda grins into her hand. “But don’t worry. I’m certain Uncle Howard was mostly joking.”

This time, Steve is the one that laughs – and for the first time in days, he feels some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “Oh, I’m sure he meant every word he said.”

“It seems like you’re already starting to learn the ropes around here. Maybe you won’t be needing me as much as my uncle thinks. Of course,” she says, stepping around him, and Steve turns to watch as she picks his drink off of the bar and glances over her shoulder at him, “I _will_ still be taking that dinner invitation you were about to offer.”

Wanda giggles as she shakes her head at Natasha, gliding over to the bar to take the stool next to hers, and, over their heads, Pietro flashes his teeth in a grin.

Steve walks up to the bar, setting his forearm on the counter. Natasha holds his stare, bringing the rim of his cocktail glass up to her lips to take a sip, and Steve feels his own lips tugging into a smirk. “Are you going to be trouble, Romanoff?”

She quirks an eyebrow. “If you’re expecting anything _but_ trouble by now, Rogers, you might be in the wrong business.”

... ...

When her uncle asked her to check in on Steve Rogers every now and then to see how he’s handling things, she’s fairly certain he didn’t intend for her to end up alone with him in the office of one of the Rogers’ restaurants and making their way through a bottle of wine—but really, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Natasha’s always been a little infamous for improvising.

“Not that I think you’re lying, Rogers, but I’m having a hard time picturing you as a scrawny little kid when you’ve got all of _this_ going on,” Natasha admits, waving her hand at where Steve is standing at the small bar in the corner of the office, pouring a little more wine into their glasses. He glances over his shoulder at her, his eyes tracing over her body as she lounges back in the leather wingback chair, her ankles crossed and her heels propped up on one corner of the desk. She’s not drunk just yet, but it certainly feels a little bit like she is as Steve turns to her with that crooked, almost boyish smile of his and hands her another glass of wine, clinking their drinks together and holding her stare as he takes a sip. He doesn’t shy away from her stare, but it doesn’t feel combative the way she’s used to when someone looks her in the eyes and it’s _refreshing_.

He takes another sip of wine, longer this time, as he sits himself on the edge of the desk. “I’m told looks can be deceiving.”

Natasha breathes out a laugh. “I may have heard that once or twice before.” His lips twitch, but she can see it in his eyes that something is distracting him, even just a little. She studies his stare for a moment, and again, he doesn’t break their gaze. “Does that have anything to do with why you seem a little distracted right now?”

Steve’s lips quirk at the corners. “You’re definitely as good at reading people as they say.”

“And _you’re_ good at dodging questions,” she counters lightly, tilting her head. “It’s okay if you don’t trust me quite yet. I’d say that makes you better at this than you think.”

Steve chuckles, shaking his head. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he asks, though Natasha can tell he’s mostly talking out loud than anything else, so she takes a sip of wine and watches him stare up at the ceiling for a moment. “Clint tells me I shouldn’t trust just anyone, either, and yet I’m supposed to trust him. I _do_ trust him. And the Families? Everything they do is built on trust.” He pauses, shaking his head again before meeting Natasha’s stare once more. “I guess it’s hard for me to figure out what the truth is.”

She smiles softly. “Truth is a matter of circumstance. That’s something you should figure out how to accept if you plan on making it out of here in one piece.”

He swallows lightly, and for a fleeting second, she thinks his gaze flits down to her lips. “That’s a tough way to live,” he notes, his voice quiet.

She hums. He’s certainly not wrong. “It’s a good way not to die, though,” she says, and Steve breathes out another chuckle.

“Well, that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?” he asks, watching her as she takes another sip of her wine. Natasha feels her skin tingling ever so slightly as her pulse thrums, and she’s not entirely sure it’s simply because of all the alcohol she’s been drinking. “So, what about us?” he asks. “What’s our truth right now?”

Natasha licks her lips, relishing in the way Steve’s eyes follow the motion. “What do you want it to be?”

He breathes out another chuckle as he shakes his head, glancing away, but only for a moment. Then those bright blue eyes are on her again, glinting with something she can’t quite place, and she’s not sure if she’s impressed or irritated that she’s having a hard time reading him right now. “Howard said you were going to advise me, but I’ve already got Clint for that.” Steve’s gaze flicks over her, his lips hitching at the corner. “Why don’t we start with friends?” he asks, and Natasha can’t quite help the laugh that slips out.

_Maybe your uncle just wants you to be friends._

Natasha hopes like hell that Maria doesn’t ever find out about this little conversation, or she’ll never shut up about it.

“Oh, you’re definitely in the wrong business, Rogers,” she says, and he just lifts his glass up, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly until she relents and clinks her wine against his. “Okay,” she concedes. “We can start with friends, especially since my uncle expects me to spend quite a lot of time with you for the foreseeable future. Though, between you and me, _friend_ ,” she adds, earning a smirk from Steve and a small, amused shake of his head, “I still haven’t pieced together why my uncle is so insistent to begin with.”

Steve nods as he considers this. “I’ve been turning that over in my head, too. I have to say, I can’t imagine a reason Howard would have for wanting to put his only niece into the crossfire by sticking you with me. But then again, I don’t know the man that well, either.”

“Maybe not, but you shouldn’t underestimate your own instincts,” she advises, and then sighs, shaking her head. “But you’re right. I can’t piece together a solid reason, either, other than the fact that your father and my uncle were incredibly close. It’s very possible he just wants to offer Joseph’s son help that he can truly trust, but…”

She trails off, glancing up to meet his stare. He nods again, seeming to pick up on her hesitation. While that answer is certainly possible, it doesn’t seem likely. Not entirely.

“Would there be any reason I should be worried?” Steve asks almost haltingly, like he’s not entirely sure what he’s even asking to begin with, or maybe he’s just not sure how to phrase it. “I know my father is either respected or feared by everyone, and Clint insists that I shouldn’t be too worried about all the shit happening coming back to bite me in the ass, but—I don’t know,” he admits with an exhale. “I can’t really shake the feeling that maybe he’s right. Maybe all of this might actually have to do with Dad instead.”

Natasha takes another sip of her wine as she lets this sink in. It’s a pretty damn good thing to consider, especially since Joseph Rogers is still missing.

She thinks about her conversation with Carol and Maria, about Carol’s words about the possibility that Uncle Howard might genuinely have a reason to be concerned about Steve’s safety, and she catches Steve’s gaze. “Clint’s told you about Hela?” she asks, though she already knows the answer. Steve nods. Hela hasn’t exactly been quiet in how much she dislikes that Steve Rogers has taken over the Families. “If you ask me about anyone that could genuinely have it out for you among the Families, she’d be the only one. She wasn’t exactly your father’s biggest fan, either. If something happened to make it that way, it was kept on the down low from everyone, but I’ve always thought that maybe Hela had a reason for being so pissed at your father. That maybe she must’ve stepped out of line. Well,” she amends with a quirk of her lips, “more so than usual.”

Steve gives her a small grin, nodding. “I thought maybe that could be true, too. Maybe that’s worth investigating a little further.”

“Just do so quietly, and _thoroughly_ ,” Natasha stresses, even though she has a feeling Steve would’ve done so to begin with. “If you find something worth confronting her about, you’ll have to be damn sure that what you know is right. Don’t give Odin and Frigga a leg to stand on to defend her or a reason challenge you.”

“And make sure the rest of the Families have every reason to back me up over them?”

His grin widens as those eyes stare back at her, darkening ever so slightly, and she feels her pulse pick up a little faster. “If you’re always going to be this quick of a study then this is going to be fun,” she tells him, and when he laughs, she swears she can almost feel its touch across her skin.

She can’t remember the last time she felt this kind of thrill.

... ...

“I still don’t think I’m doing this right.”

Wanda looks up from her cutting board and lets out a laugh as she sets her knife down and reaches over. “Start in here first,” she tells him, scooping the crumbling pizza dough back into the mixing bowl. “When you get it to stop crumbling, you can knead it on the counter again. And don’t forget to use a little flour if it’s sticking to your skin,” she adds, taking his hands and flipping them over to sprinkle flour into his palms. Steve breathes out a chuckle and nods, and Wanda takes a moment to watch as he goes back to kneading the dough. “You’ll get the hang of this,” she tells him, and he knows by the soft smile on her face that she’s talking about more than just making a pizza.

“Yeah?” he asks. Wanda nods, giving him a smile before she goes back to chopping the herbs. “Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Wanda repeats, her voice firmer this time. “You have no idea how much you take after our father. It’s like you were made for it, just like him.”

“Or so I’ve been told,” Steve says with an exhale, squeezing the dough a little harder as he rolls it together in the bowl. When he hears Wanda’s knife pause, however, he glances over and finds himself pausing as well as Wanda looks at him, her forehead creased with concern as she rubs her lips together. He knows what she’s about to say – it’s something both she and Pietro have already said before – so he reaches over and smudges two flour-covered fingers across her cheek, smiling when she lets out a soft squeal and wrinkles her nose, batting his hand away. “If you offer to take my place again, I’ll start to think you’re trying to get rid of me, which is pretty damn upsetting.”

She giggles softly, plucking a pinch of flour from the bowl and tossing it at him. He laughs. “I’d never want that,” she says, and the very edges of her smile fade ever so slightly as she seems to consider her next words. “I know this isn’t your first choice, but I love that I get to see more of you now. I love that you’re here.”

He smiles, and this time, she doesn’t seem to mind his floury hands at all when he pulls her close, draping an arm around her as she wraps hers around his waist in a hug.

“I do, too,” he says against her hair, and she tips her head back to smile up at him, lips parting to say something in return, but they both pause when they hear the front door being unlocked, two voices floating in from the front of the brownstone.

Sam and Bucky.

Wanda’s gaze flits to the entryway, hesitant, but then he gives her a gentle squeeze and she peers up at him with a small smile.

Sam and Bucky’s voices grow louder as they step into the kitchen, but then they both pause when they see Wanda, their bodies stiffening ever so slightly, and Steve _hates_ that he can feel Wanda cling onto him just a little bit tighter as if to brace herself. “Hey,” Steve greets, pulling Sam’s attention off of Wanda, and his friend gives him this wry sort of smile as he echoes his greeting. It takes Bucky a moment longer for his eyes to leave Wanda, but Steve is relieved that there isn’t apprehension in his stare. It seems as though Bucky is just taking a moment to take her in, and since his sister doesn’t seem wary just yet, Steve lets it slide. “Looking for a free meal?” he asks with a smirk.

Sam grins as he tosses his keys onto the island counter. “Always,” he says, his gaze shifting back to Wanda. “Is that garlic you’ve got roasting in the oven?”

Wanda’s smile brightens just a little bit more as she unwinds herself from around Steve. “Of course. Is there any other way to make pizza sauce?” she asks, one eyebrow arched as she picks up her knife again. “Are you two any good in the kitchen?”

Bucky steps further into the kitchen, coming to stand opposite of where Wanda has spread out on the kitchen island. “Not really,” he admits, but Wanda still pushes over the second, smaller cutting board where she’s placed the blocks of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and Bucky’s lips twitch into a grin as he picks up the grate. “You know, Steve,” he says, still holding Wanda’s gaze, “I wasn’t really sure I saw the resemblance between you and your half-siblings before, but now it’s pretty damn clear that you’re related.”

Wanda breathes out a laugh as she shakes her head, and Steve smiles, feeling some of his hesitation dissipate.

“ _You_ ,” Wanda says to Sam, and Steve rubs his lips together to stifle a laugh when Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. “If you two are joining us for dinner, we’ll need more than just one pizza.” She grabs another mixing bowl from one of the cabinets underneath and hands it to him, her eyes twinkling. “Do you know how to make the dough?”

A grin tugs at the corner of Sam’s lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

Wanda exhales a laugh as she turns back to the cutting board, but Steve knows his sister, so he knows that she’s not quite done just yet. “Might I suggest that next time you boys plan to visit, you should check to make sure my brother isn’t already preoccupied,” she advises, glancing up and quirking an eyebrow as she catches Bucky’s gaze. “He might have company far less understanding than me, especially since you’ve come to report that all of your leads have come up empty-handed in your search for our father.”

Steve feels Sam and Bucky turn their attention on him, but he looks at his sister instead, offering a wry smile as he reaches for her.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Wanda says softly as she lets him pull her into a hug. “You did well at hiding it. I’m just much better at finding things out.”

Despite everything, Steve manages a chuckle. “Dad always did call you his little witch, somehow seeing right into everyone’s heads,” he muses, reaching up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. Wanda squeezes him a little harder. “I didn’t want to say anything because I knew it was a long shot,” he tells her, even though he can see it in her eyes that she must have figured this out for herself. Still, she nods, exhaling a shaky breath. “But, since I was the only one that had police ties, I thought it was worth a try.”

“It was,” Wanda reassures.

“It still is,” Bucky adds, and both Steve and Wanda turn to look at him. Bucky nods, his jaw setting in a stubborn way that Steve has seen dozens and dozens of times before. “We’ll still keep looking on our end,” he promises, his gaze shifting from Steve to Wanda as her offers a wry smile. “Your dad’s just damn good at covering his tracks.”

“It’s kept him alive all this time.” Wanda gives a small shrug. “I just hope that’s still true now, wherever he may be.”

“It _is_ ,” Steve insists, brushing a kiss to her temple. She looks up at him. “Nothing in the world can keep him away from his princess for too long.”

She lets out a soft laugh, giving Steve another squeeze before releasing him with a shaky exhale. “Come on,” she says, glancing around at the three of them. “At this rate, we won’t be done with dinner until midnight.”

... ...

“One day when I’m sent to retrieve you from your office this late at night, I’ll be pleasantly surprised that you won’t be here,” a voice greets her with a slight drawl, and Natasha feels a smirk tug at her lips, looking up from her laptop as Tony strolls through the door. He tilts his head, peering at her from over the top of his aviators before pulling them off completely, folding them up and tucking them into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I know Dad asked you to take over because this place was a shit show before you whipped everyone into shape—which, kudos to that, by the way. The club’s doing great. But you know you don’t have to keep managing this dump anymore.”

Natasha hums, leaning back in her chair as Tony comes to stand on the other side of the desk. “What if I like this dump?” she asks, one eyebrow arched.

Her cousin scoffs. “Yeah, because it’s always been your dream to manage a gentlemen’s club.”

Natasha rubs her lips together, trying in vain not to smile. Because Tony isn’t wrong, exactly. Natasha may not do a lot of dirty work; none of them do, in fact, because the higher up in the Families you are, the less you actually have to put your ass on the line for. Especially if you truly are _family_. Her Uncle Howard likes to give the cops as little chance as possible to find hard evidence tying any of them to any actual crimes. Still, Natasha likes to keep busy, and she thinks her uncle knew that when he asked her to come in and clean up the club. The capo he had in charge before did enough to float under the radar, but considering how prestigious this establishment is and how many their members come from old money, the club was capable of bringing in a hell of a bigger profit than it’d seen in the last few years, and her uncle didn’t want miss out.

It’s been enough to keep Natasha occupied for a few months, but now that the staff is in order and the management has been almost entire replaced, there’s really no reason for her to still come in as often or stay as late as she does.

She knows her uncle will let her take over another business if she asks, or she can step back completely if that’s what she wants instead.

It’s her call. It always has been, but for once, Natasha doesn’t already have her next step in mind.

“Seriously, I can’t imagine having to come here every day knowing you could run into Anton or Ivan at any moment,” Tony says, and though Natasha knows his shudder is more for theatrics, she also knows the contempt in his voice is genuine.

Natasha shares the sentiment. Anton Vanko had been hired onto Stark Industries when it was barely a start-up and has been friends with her Uncle Howard ever since. The man is a brilliant scientist, that much is certain, but there’s always been something about him that’s felt off. That was something that might not have been all that concerning given the world the Starks were part of, only Anton Vanko didn’t _come_ from that world, which Aunt Maria likes to remind everyone whenever the subject comes up. She’s never liked him, and honestly? Natasha isn’t entirely sure if her Uncle Howard likes him, either, but the man was crucial in launching Stark Industries and hasn’t given her Uncle Howard a reason to cut their ties, so everyone has let it be for now. Though, that may not be the case for much longer if his son continues being so damn reckless.

Ivan is sloppy and has a big ego and an even bigger temper. He doesn’t care much for keeping a low profile, even from the cops, and though his father is the reason he hasn’t been kicked out yet, Natasha knows her uncle’s patience is running thin.

“They’re just about as entitled and obnoxious than most of the other men that come here,” she points out. She’s not defending either of them ( _fuck,_ not even a little) but Tony has always been rather overprotective of her and she has to remind him every now and then that she can handle herself. “Although, they’ve done quite a bit of talking lately.”

“About how much they dislike your latest boy toy? Yeah, so I’ve heard,” Tony says. Natasha narrows her eyes. “Sorry, do you prefer partner?”

“ _Friend_.”

Tony hums. “No, I’m pretty sure you don’t have any of those.”

Natasha feels herself smiling as she rolls her eyes. “Was there a point to this intrusion of yours?”

He laughs, but a light knock cuts him off before he can answer, and Natasha turns to find her mother standing in the doorway. “We sent him in here to retrieve you for dinner,” she explains, one eyebrow arched, and Natasha breathes out a laugh. It wouldn’t be the first or even fiftieth time Natasha’s been a little late to dinner. She’s always gotten caught up in things, even when she was little, and she can’t even begin to count how many times her mother or father has come to get her just like this so they can drag her to the dinner table. Even now, unless they know she has work to take care of, the family will wait on her if she’s late to their weekly dinner (and she usually is).

“Did you and Dad finally get tired of finding me for yourself?” Natasha jokes as her mother walks over to the desk.

Her lips curve into a small smirk. “I was giving your uncle a chance to sneak his granddaughter a few snacks before dinner,” she says, turning a pointed gaze onto Tony, and Natasha lets out a chuckle as Tony groans, darting out of the office as he calls out for Morgan. “You need to sleep more,” her mother chides, touching Natasha’s cheek.

Natasha tilts her head. “Are you saying I look tired?”

“I’m saying you _are_ tired, because I can tell these things.” Her mother reaches over to close Natasha’s laptop and then gestures for Natasha to get up, and Natasha scoffs out a laugh, shooting her mother a look as she stands. Her mother rolls her eyes. “I know you save your work often, so don’t pretend that I ruined anything. Besides, you should have been done working hours ago, and you haven’t returned any of my texts since this afternoon,” she adds, and there’s something in her voice that makes Natasha pause.

Natasha isn’t particularly quick to reply, but considering how suddenly things can come up, no one else in the family is all that compulsive about it, either.

Her parents have pointed it out to her times before, but it’d always been in a dry attempt at a joke, or sometimes to chide her. It’d never once sounded like _this_. Like it’d been something for them to worry about.

“I’ve been here all day,” Natasha points out. If her mother wanted to, she could track Natasha’s location since Aunt Maria insisted on it from the whole family, just in case. Her mother nods, but there’s something in her eyes that Natasha can’t quite place that makes her hesitate. “Did I miss something important?” she asks, reaching for her phone.

“Not particularly,” her mother promises, snatching Natasha’s phone from the desk before Natasha can, and Natasha shoots her mother a look.

She doesn’t have a chance to respond, though, because a moment later, Tony reappears in the doorway with exasperation tugging at his expression as he points a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we get this show on the road? Because if Morgan gets a sugar high from all the chocolate Dad’s slipping her, _you’ll_ be putting her to bed, Aunt Melina.”

Natasha smirks as her mother breathes out a chuckle, nudging Natasha forward, and Natasha catches her glancing back into the office before shutting the door behind them.


	2. part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha knows, as meticulous and wary as her uncle is, if she’d torn apart his offices and dismantled all of his bookshelves and his desks, she’d find something. Her uncle doesn’t like to throw anything away, but he knows not leave just anything lying around, either, and she’s willing to bet that Joseph Rogers had been the same way—which could mean that maybe Joseph _did_ have something hidden once upon a time, but maybe he’d had the forethought to rid of it.
> 
> Maybe he thought it would be necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really, really hoping it won't take 2.5 weeks for me to get every single chapter done, so keep your fingers crossed for me because my inspiration and I will need as much luck as we can get! 
> 
> (And just so you darlings know: I post general updates on my writing progress over on my tumblr account - also "chalantness" - so you can always hop over there and click on the 'updates' link to see where I'm at; but please don't comment below or send an ask requesting an ETA on the next chapter because my creative productivity is super up and down, so I can't anticipate if I'll have a good writing day or not.)

“So how come I’m the only one that hasn’t met your new boyfriend?”

Peter peels a pepperoni slice off of his pizza and pops it into his mouth, grinning, and Natasha feels the corners of her lips twitching into a smirk as she shakes her head at him. Somehow, she’s not surprised. It’s hardly the first time that her cousin has dragged her to this particular little pizzeria in the city, and it’s been a bit longer than she realized since they’ve hung out as just the two of them, so getting his text about wanting to have dinner with her wasn’t something in itself that was particularly suspicious.

The cheeky grin that’s been on his face all night, however, definitely _is_. He may be a sweet kid – sweeter than any of them – but he’s still very much a Stark.

“Is that why you’ve been showing up even later than usual for Sunday dinner?” Peter goes on, his grin getting wider as his eyes glint, and Natasha can’t help but smirk.

“Since when were you such a gossip?” she asks, crumpling her napkin and tossing it at his face.

Peter wrinkles his nose at her for a second and then laughs, reaching across their small table to poke at her shoulder. “Come on, Nat,” he says, and honestly, she’s not quite sure if he’ll appreciate her calling him _cute_ now that he’s sixteen, so she presses her lips together to keep from doing so. “How come I have to hear about this from Tony?”

She breathes out a laugh. Well, that certainly explains it. Peter is always curious about what’s going on in her life, and, as with everyone else in the Families, he usually knows who she spends her days with because she rarely wants to see anyone else. It’s far too complicated to get involved with someone who’s not part of this life somehow, whether it’s a simple friendship or something romantic—so, other than a few casual nights with a perfect stranger every so often, she tries not to mingle all that much. But it was never something she gave a second thought about until Steve Rogers came into the picture and she’d begun to see how much of an adjustment he has to make in his mind to things she’d simply grown up knowing. Still, he’s pretty damn good at adapting. It’s easy to see that he’s someone that’s meant to lead and he really doesn’t need her advice to do it.

He doesn’t really need to see her almost every other day, either, but she’s not exactly complaining.

“If a boyfriend existed, there’s no way the family would’ve kept quiet about it for long,” she points out, one eyebrow arched.

“Yeah, that’s true. Guess that’s why you and Steve Rogers were all anyone could talk about before dinner the other night.” His grin widens. “Which you would’ve known if you showed up on time, but I can see you were busy making friends, right?”

She can’t help it; she laughs. “Clearly you’ve been spending too much time with Tony.”

Peter shrugs, picking his pizza up and taking another bite. “To be fair, I think they’d be talking about Steve Rogers even if you weren’t suddenly spending all this time with him,” he says, and Natasha nods at this. That’s certainly true. It seems that Steve is all anyone in the underworld can talk about, and she knows it’s not simply because he’s a new face. They have dozens of men doing their dirty work, dozens of associates passing in and out of their world. Some of them end up being trouble, but most of them slip under the radar, carry out their orders and take their cuts, not drawing any attention—and in this lifestyle, that’s definitely preferable to drawing the _wrong_ kind of attention.

It’s different with Steve, though, because he’s not some soldier that made his way in. He’s a variable none of them could have ever predicted, and, maybe for the first time ever, the Families have to play it safe. At least for now.

“That may be true, but I’m still trying to figure out why _you_ want to talk about him, too, considering you’re barely involved in the Family business.”

Peter glances down with a chuckle. “What, that means I can’t be curious about my cousin’s life?”

“Curious, or worried?” Natasha asks, and he meets her gaze, his smile fading a little at the edges as he shrugs his shoulders again, almost sheepish now. “Peter.”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” he admits. “I mean, I’m always worried about everyone, even just a little bit. And maybe a little bit more now that—”

“I have a new friend?” Natasha guesses. He stays quiet, simply blinking back at her. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear about him.”

“I know,” Peter promises, and she can tell that he means it. “It’s not what they’re saying. It’s just that there’s all this talk, and then there’s _you_ , and no one’s _worried_ , really, but they’re—they don’t want you to get caught up in anything for no reason. And Tony’s… not exactly understanding why Uncle Howard wants you so involved.”

Natasha doesn’t quite understand it, either, but it’s not something she’s about to get into right now, and especially not with Peter. He may not be all that involved in this life like the rest of them are, but he’s not oblivious, and she’s not going to give him another reason to worry by telling him that she’s there to keep an eye out on Steve. Between people like Hela and Anton running their mouths, and all of the busted deliveries starting to become a pattern, it’s clear that something is stirring up between the Families—but after her talk with Steve that first night they’d met, Natasha is starting to think that maybe all of this tension would’ve built even if Joseph Rogers had never gone missing.

Because Steve had made a good point. Hela has always been outspoken, has always found a reason to argue about something, which meant no one really dwelled on the fact that her attitude toward Joseph Rogers in particular had gotten more aggressive recently. It’s how she’s always been, so why would anyone think twice about it?

It’s a rather clever cover, and one that Hela could make good use of if she ever needs to.

Maybe she does.

“Uncle Howard has a reason, and a good one,” Natasha tells Peter, reaching over to ruffle his hair, and he bats her hand away with a laugh just as her phone vibrates on the table. She picks it up, swiping to open the text—and, not for the first time, she’s glad she’s got one hell of a poker face as she feels Peter’s curious gaze on her.

“Is that Aunt May?” Peter asks, and Natasha glances up to find him checking his own phone, muttering something under his breath. “Have we really been here that long?”

 _Thank fuck._ Natasha hardly believes in miracles, but this is as good of one as any. “You’re with me, kid. I hardly think Aunt May will be that upset,” Natasha points out, typing a reply to Steve— _On my way_ —before slipping her phone into her purse. “But it’s probably time I get you home, anyway.”

... ...

 _Something happened with Wanda_. _Meet at your place._

He’s picking up dinner when he gets the text, and he doesn’t really know what the hell to focus on first—why Bucky is texting him about his sister, or what the hell happened to Wanda in the first place—but it’s almost instinctive, the way he texts Natasha right after telling Bucky that he’ll be right there. He thinks about sending Clint a text, too, but thinks better of it. Clint will want to know if something’s wrong, _especially_ if it’s about Wanda, but Steve wants to know what the hell is even happening before interrupting the guy’s night with his wife and kids. Natasha is already on her way; if things aren’t serious enough to need Clint right away, too, then filling him in can wait until the morning.

And, _fuck_ , it better not be anything serious. He thinks he’s done a pretty damn good job of being strategic, toeing the line to keep the peace.

It’d be a damn shame for all of that to go waste because some idiot decided to come after Wanda and Pietro.

“Buck?” Steve asks, all but slamming the door behind him as soon as he’s inside and tossing the takeout onto the table. “Wanda?”

“I’m alright, Steve.” His sister’s voice is as soft and soothing as always, and Steve feels a little bit of the tightness in his chest ease just at the sound of it as he rounds the corner into the living room. She’s offers a small smile from where she’s sitting on the couch, but beside her, Bucky stands with his arms crossed and his jaw tight. Rarely does the guy ever let something get to him, so the dark look in his eyes puts Steve back on edge, especially when he catches sight of the bandage wrapped around Wanda’s arm.

“Drive-by,” Bucky answers before Steve can even get the question out, and Steve feels his entire body go cold.

“ _What?_ ”

“I was _near_ it,” Wanda insists, starting to stand, but Steve gently nudges her back down as he sits in front of her on the coffee table. He takes her hands in his, eyes passing over her to check for anything out of place, but other than the bandaging, she’s untouched. Steve swallows, reaching up to touch the edge of it on her arm, and she gently cups her hand over his and gives it a little squeeze. “I got pushed up against a building when everyone scattered,” she explains, “but I didn’t get hit. It wasn’t meant for me.”

“You don’t know that.” Bucky’s voice is firm and clearly pissed, though Steve can tell that the harsh edge of it isn’t directed at his sister.

“Did you catch them?”

Bucky shakes his head once, exhaling a sharp breath. “We were tailing a suspect nearby and my partner went after them but they got away. And I jumped out of my car when I recognized your sister, so I didn’t get a good look at it myself.”

“I got a glimpse,” Wanda says softly, her voice almost as hesitant as her expression. “It looked like an Asgard driver.”

Steve jerks back a little, turning to Bucky. “That’s what the other detective said,” his best friend confirms with a nod. “It looked pretty damn close to one of the ones we have under their file, but no one caught the license plate. We’re going to look into security cameras to see if we can verify that way, but for now, we can’t say for sure.” His eyes flick back to Wanda’s, and Steve watches his sister lift her chin stubbornly, something passing between them before Bucky adds, “We should take her to the hospital, Steve.”

Steve’s gaze snaps back onto Wanda’s, but her eyes are still locked on Bucky’s, flaring with annoyance. “It’s not necessary,” she insists.

“I cleaned your scrape but you still hit your pretty hard when you got shoved aside,” Bucky fires back.

“You said it yourself, you didn’t think I had a concussion,” Wanda argues, though her voice is a little bit softer now as she glances at Steve. He rubs his lips together, bringing a hand up gently to her head, and both she and Bucky stay quiet as he feels around for any kind of bump or bruise. She seems fine, but it’s not as if Steve’s a doctor.

“You checked her yourself?” he asks Bucky.

“I did, but that doesn’t change the fact that she should get looked at, just to be safe.”

A few months ago, that would’ve been Steve’s first instinct, too. It still is, if he’s being honest; he’d been pretty damn tempted to tell Bucky to take Wanda to the hospital himself if he thought it was necessary, but the fact that they were waiting for him in his brownstone instead meant that Wanda must have insisted on it herself, and Bucky must have deemed her well enough to actually comply with it, even if he was obviously against the choice. As much as the bandage wrapped around Wanda’s arm makes Steve want to put a hole through the wall, he trusts Bucky’s assessment that she wasn’t concussed just as much as he trusts Wanda’s judgment to avoid going to the ER.

Because hospitals will mean questions, and questions will mean unnecessary attention. The less people involved, the better.

“It _won’t_ be safe if you take her in, I can promise you that.”

Steve twists around in time to see Pietro practically bolt into the room, tossing his keys onto the coffee table Steve is still sitting on. As he fusses over their sister, Steve stands, meeting Natasha’s gaze as she follows Pietro’s frantic path into the living room. Steve is a hell of a lot calmer now than he was just a few minutes ago, bursting into the brownstone in almost the exact same manner as his brother, but there’s something about Natasha’s presence that eases even more of the tightness in his chest. The fact that she voiced the same conclusion that he’d come to in his head reassures him in the same way Wanda’s insistence of not needing a hospital had, despite his own doubts.

“How is a hospital not safe?” Bucky asks, the edge back in his voice as he glances from Natasha to Steve and back down to Wanda.

Pietro is sitting beside her on the couch now, between her and Bucky as he casts a narrowed gaze up at him. “The less attention on us, the better.”

There’s an edge to Pietro’s voice, too, and it makes Steve let out a sharp exhale as he crosses his arms over his chest.

Natasha comes up beside him, meeting his gaze as she sets her purse down on the coffee table. She arches an eyebrow, her question as clear as day in her eyes, and he shakes his head; he’s not going to pretend that Bucky and Pietro aren’t something to be worried about, too, but they’re rather low on the list, all things considered. They’re far from done with tonight’s incident, but he’s just really fucking glad that Wanda is okay, and it’ll be a hell of a lot easier to think now that he’s seen it for himself that she’s fine.

Natasha gives him a small, knowing sort of smile, nodding as if she’d heard his thoughts. He wouldn’t be surprised if she did, somehow.

“Easy, Pietro,” Natasha says, her voice light, almost teasing, as she glances at the twins for a moment before shifting her gaze to Bucky. “He did just help your sister out.”

Pietro’s jaw ticks as he turns away, but then he catches Wanda watching him, a soft smile touching her lips, and he exhales a breath, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he does so. He smooths a hand over her hair, drawing her close to brush a kiss to her forehead.

Steve knows his brother well enough to not expect much else than this, at least for the moment. But, as he catches Bucky staring down at the twins, some of his own apprehension ebbing as Wanda leans into Pietro’s shoulder, Steve thinks that this might just be good enough for his best friend, too.

 _Fuck_. Steve wipes a hand down his face. He’s not quite sure if he’s exhausted or if he’s more awake than before, but he sure as hell doesn’t have much of an appetite anymore. He glances back at where he’d practically thrown down his takeout order in his rush inside and exhales a breath, walking over to check inside. At least he’d gone with noodles and vegetables instead of soup, or else it’d be all over the bag by now. He picks it up and heads back over to the others, and Pietro pops up from the couch to take the bag from him before Steve has to ask. “Try to eat something, alright?” he tells Wanda, and she nods, letting him pull her up. “I want you two to stay the night.”

Wanda gives him a soft smile, not even a little bit surprised by the request. “Okay,” she replies, leaning in as he kisses her forehead, too. “I’ll make you a cup of tea?” He nods, and then she turns to Natasha, her smile brightening a little. “Should I make you a cup, too?”

“I’d love one.” Natasha reaches over, tucking some of Wanda’s hair behind her ear, and the gesture makes Steve smile, too.

Wanda turns toward Bucky. “Would you like one as well?”

Steve watches his best friend as his expression shifts into something gentle, gentler than Steve has seen him in a while. “Sounds good,” he tells her, cracking a soft grin. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” she replies quietly, and the tone of her voice makes something heavy settle in Steve’s stomach once more as he watches her and Pietro head into the kitchen.

She could’ve been hurt tonight, seriously fucking hurt, and there’s a pretty decent chance that it would’ve have even been an accident.

“So, I’m assuming we’ve entertained the thought that tonight wasn’t a coincidence?” Natasha asks, seeming to pull the words from Steve’s mind once again as he turns to meet her gaze. He’s a little too pissed by the idea to actually answer, so he simply nods, clenching his jaw. She hums softly. “What _did_ happen, exactly?”

Right. _He_ hadn’t even known what to tell her when he asked her to come, but she must have gotten some of it from Pietro when they bumped into each other on their way in. And no, Steve doesn’t have to ask to know that Wanda had told their brother herself. Chances are, Pietro felt off the moment it all went down, and Wanda probably called him while Bucky was driving them over here. The two of them have always been attuned to each other like that, and Steve doesn’t even think it’s a twin thing; it’s just _their_ thing.

“There was a drive-by and Wanda was close when shots were fired,” Steve tells her, gaze shifting to Bucky, and Natasha’s eyes follow, too. “Really fucking close, apparently.”

Bucky nods, glancing between the two of them. His eyes linger longer on Natasha, though, and Steve remembers belatedly that this is technically their first meeting, even though every cop in the city already knows who she is already. In fact, they all probably know about him now, too.

“Wanda says she wasn’t the target, but I’ve got a pretty damn good gut feeling that’s not the case,” he tells Natasha. “She also thinks the car was from the Asgards.”

Natasha turns to Steve, not an ounce of surprise in her expression. Steve doesn’t doubt that they’re thinking of the same person, but she still says, “Hela,” as she gives Bucky another glance, and he nods. Bucky knows who Hela is for the same reasons he knew who Natasha was before she’d walked into the room, and he and Sam were the reasons Steve already had an idea of who the Families were before he’d been dragged in with them himself. “Did you find anything out?” Natasha asks quietly, turning back to Steve.

He casts a glance toward the kitchen. He doubts they can hear the three of them from so far away, but Steve keeps his voice low just in case.

“Not a damn thing,” he mutters. “Other than the reports and files he keeps on hand for all of the businesses, Dad doesn’t even have something I can look through.”

Which had been pretty fucking suspicious, if Steve is being honest. He never noticed how very little _things_ had been in his dad’s place and in all of his offices until Steve had a reason to go looking. There are photos everywhere, dictionaries and historical books and trinkets that Steve doubts his father had even picked out for himself; but not a single document of importance, nothing outside of business reports and financial statements for all of the legitimate businesses under their name. His laptops were no different, but Steve was less surprised by this. Clint is big on not leaving a digital trail because computer forensics can recover just about anything, so his dad likely had the same attitude.

He realizes his father was a cautious guy and for a lot of good reasons, but the fact that he has _nothing_ personal to be found other than a few framed photographs is a red flag if Steve’s ever saw one.

Even Natasha looks a little alarmed by this, and he has yet to see her genuinely confused until this moment. “Nothing?”

Steve shakes his head, and Bucky chimes in with, “Sam’s still going through the last hard drive, but it’s been nothing but programs for payroll and schedules and shit.”

Natasha rubs her lips together, gaze flitting to the kitchen before catching Steve’s stare again. “Maybe the twins might know where to look?”

Steve nods, considering this. He practically tore up the floorboards in every building his dad owned, but Wanda and Pietro could still know of a place to look that he doesn’t. He also hasn’t had a chance to check either of their apartments, and even though he doubts it, there could be something there they don’t even know of.

The high whistle of the tea kettle on the stove starts to fill the air, and with it, Steve lets out an exhale, feeling far more tired than he realized. Natasha seems to share the sentiment, too, because she cracks a wry smile. “To be continued,” she says, heading for the kitchen, and Steve shares a weary glance with Bucky before they both follow.

... ...

The only other ones in the family that have a habit of running later than Natasha are Tony and Uncle Howard, so she isn’t surprised that she gets a text from her uncle to just let herself into his office to wait for him. These meetings are never all that consistent, but they happen often enough that Natasha can usually expect a text every other week. Her uncle has a rule of not talking about work at their Sunday dinners, so the two of them meet up over lunch instead so she can catch him up on anything he wants to know about. But mostly it’s just an excuse for her Uncle Howard to pull her away to catch up ( _with my favorite niece_ , he’ll say, and she’ll roll her eyes because she’s his _only_ niece).

They’re having lunch at one of their bars this time, so she has the bartender make her a martini before she lets herself into the office.

Most of her Uncle Howard’s offices look exactly like this one, all dark wood and leather and low lighting, and it almost always makes her smirk because it really does look like something straight out of _The Godfather_. Instead of oil painting, though, the wall behind his desk is covered with photographs of their family in mismatched frames, artfully arranged and almost taking up almost every space from the floor to the ceiling. As much of a hard ass that her uncle can be, he’s always been pretty damn sentimental, too.

Natasha perches herself on the desk, sipping on her martini as she takes in a shot of their family at a park. Peter is barely even one in the photo, and it must’ve been sometime before his parents’ accidents, because her Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary are there, beaming at the camera with Baby Peter cuddled between them.

 _God_ , Peter looks so much like them. He’s one of those kids that’s such a good mix of their parents that he looks like the spitting image of whichever parent he happens to be with at the time. Aunt Maria said that Tony had been the same way until he’d grown up to look exactly like Uncle Howard. The Stark brothers just have strong genes in general because Natasha has always looked a lot more like her father and even her uncle than her own mother, and Morgan already looks more like Tony than she looks like Pepper.

She turns to the photo beside it of her Uncle Howard and Joseph Rogers, feeling something tug at her chest as she stares back at Joseph’s laughing face.

Natasha had been genuinely surprised when Steve said that he couldn’t find anything personal that belonged to his father, other than the photos he keeps in his home and in his offices. As much of a hard ass Joseph Rogers tended to be when it came to the Family business, he’d always struck her as the sentimental type, just like her Uncle Howard.

She’d known it wouldn’t be as simple as stumbling upon a journal entry or an email of something incriminating about Hela, but she didn’t think Steve would turn up entirely empty, either. She knows that he wouldn’t have half-heartedly rummaged through a few drawers, either; that he probably stopped short of pulling up the bricks and the floors to find something, _anything_ , to work with. Because Natasha knows, as meticulous and wary as her uncle is, if she’d torn apart his offices and dismantled all of his bookshelves and his desks, she’d find something. Her uncle doesn’t like to throw anything away, but he knows not leave just anything lying around, either, and she’s willing to bet that Joseph Rogers had been the same way—which could mean that maybe Joseph _did_ have something hidden once upon a time, but maybe he’d had the forethought to rid of it.

Maybe he thought it would be necessary.

... ...

“How’s she doing now?” Sam asks, passing over one of the coffees he’s just paid for from the cart parked near the entrance of the park.

Steve shrugs as they fall into step on the path. There’re already a few dozen early morning joggers, but other than that, the place is pretty much empty. “She’s fine,” Steve answers, because that’s definitely the truth. Wanda doesn’t seem all that shaken up from the drive-by the other night, and though part of him hadn’t expected her to be too freaked out—she’s likely seen a hell of a lot more shit than he has—he’s also a little worried that she’s not. Even Pietro still hasn’t seemed to shake it off, though that may be for the same reason that Steve hasn’t shaken it off, either. He _hates_ that Wanda had been hurt at all, even if it’s literally just a scrape, because it could’ve been a lot worse.

And it could’ve been intentional, too. Just the thought alone has his chest tightening, just a little.

“Hasn’t been left alone ever since, huh?” Sam asks, his lips quirking at the corners, and Steve breathes out a laugh.

“Not a damn chance.” If she’s annoyed that she’s practically under his or Pietro or Clint’s thumb, she’s graciously pretending not to be.

“Buck thinks it wasn’t a coincidence,” Sam says, and Steve just nods, because yeah, he remembers Bucky saying as much that night, too. They haven’t had a chance to talk about it since then, though, because they haven’t seen each other in person, and it’s definitely not something to risk alluding to in a text. “Any truth to that?”

“Probably more than I can get my hands on.” Steve takes a gulp of the coffee, relishing in its almost scalding temperature. “What about you? You think it could be true?”

Sam tilts his head, blows out slow a breath as he glances around, though no one is even close to being within earshot. “Let’s just say, if it’d been me at the scene instead of Bucky, I’d probably still have the same hunch.” Steve hums, not at all surprised. That’d been his initial thoughts, too, even before Wanda said that she thought she recognized the car. “I doubt it was random, but it’ll take a while to figure out everyone that was at the scene, let alone which ones could have a reason for someone to shoot them up.”

“Other than my sister?”

Sam lets out a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, pretty much.” He glances at Steve. “Not to be an ass, but if it _was_ meant for her, would we have a motive to work on?”

It’s not a question. Not _really_ , anyway, because Steve knows by the tone in his voice that his best friend already knows his answer.

Steve just nods, taking another gulp of coffee, and Sam nods, too, seeming to know to leave it at that. If the drive-by _was_ meant for Wanda, there’s a slim chance that it could be personal, because of something she’d done or maybe failed to do. Steve really fucking doubts that possibility, though.

The theory that it was meant to put pressure on Steve is a better one to work with, but even then, there’s still one big hole to it: Wanda is part of the Family and has been since birth. Even if someone was pissed off and impulsive enough to try and squeeze Steve out, why would they use Wanda to do it when that would mean everyone else in the Family would want their body at the bottom of the Hudson for it? It’s a shitty plan at best, but if someone was pretty damn confident that they wouldn’t get caught, it doesn’t rule out the chance of it being true, either. Then of course, there’s still a decent possibility that this isn’t about hurting Wanda or even trying to get to Steve, either.

Just because Joseph Rogers is missing doesn’t mean the drive-by couldn’t have anything to do with him. Their father is pretty well-respected—or, at the very least, well- _feared_ —by almost everyone in the underworld, but for those that hate him?

His disappearance is a great opportunity for them to make their move, and chances are they’d settle with taking their grudge out on his kids instead.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Sam mutters the words under his breath, but Steve still catches them, pulling him from his thoughts as he looks at his friend and then follows his gaze down the path onto—

Natasha.

She’s still pretty far down the path from them, but he recognizes her in an instant, even though he’s never seen her in something so casual before. She’s dressed to run in leggings and a windbreaker, her hair twisted into a braid and off to one side, and technically, he shouldn’t be surprised; he remembers her mentioning that she went for a jog most mornings, but considering they’re a decent ways away from her part of the city, he wouldn’t have anticipated bumping into her _here_. When he spots Maria Hill next to her, though, it makes more sense. Most of his meetings with Nick Fury are over on this side of Manhattan, so it’s not a stretch to think that Maria would live over here, too.

Despite his thoughts just a moment ago, a smirk tugs at his lips. Well, that certainly explains Sam’s reaction.

He’s been playing cat and mouse with Maria Hill for as long as Steve can remember him being a cop. Even if they didn’t know a thing about any of the Families, he would’ve heard of Maria considering how often her work as a private investigator causes her to cross paths with Sam’s investigations.

(And, yeah, Steve gets that it’s pretty damn ironic that a mafia princess works as private investigator; that’s always been part of the reason she and Sam butt heads.)

Natasha glances up just as she and Maria turn onto the same stretch of path, heading toward him and Sam, and if Steve was closer, he knows he’d see her eyelashes flutter as she takes him in; her only tell when she’s surprised, and he’s sure as hell a little proud of himself for being able to pick that up considering she’s got a damn good poker face.

The corner of her lip quirks in a smile just as Maria looks up, too, her eyes narrowing onto Sam, and both Steve and Natasha chuckle at their friends in the same second. He doesn’t doubt that Natasha’s gotten a play-by-play on their run-ins from Maria the same way he and Bucky have gotten them from Sam.

“Hey,” Natasha greets, her voice slightly breathless as she and Maria come to a stop in front of them, and Steve feels his smile widen at the glint of amusement in her eyes.

“Hey.” His gaze shifts onto Maria, not all that surprised to find her expression nonchalant. They’ve only met once before this, but he’s met with Nick several times by now and it’s easy to see where she’d get her straight expressions from. “Good run?”

“Nothing special,” she replies, turning to Sam and holding his stare even as she adds, “Who’s this guy?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Not a morning person, I take it, Hill?”

“That’s a rather personal question to ask, don’t you think, stranger?” she retorts dryly, not waiting for a response as she twists open her water bottle to take a gulp.

Natasha shakes her head, turning back to Steve as her amusement shifts into a thoughtful expression. “I’m glad we bumped into you,” she tells her, her voice softer now, and when she asks, “any news?” he already knows exactly what she’s referring to, so he shakes his head. “I’m not surprised,” she admits, frustration flitting across her expression as if on his behalf. She seems genuinely annoyed by this and it almost makes him smile. “Is there really no other place worth looking? Maybe one he hasn’t been to in years?”

This makes Steve pause, turning to Sam, and the guy’s face shifts in understanding. “Your mom’s place?” Sam guesses, and Steve nods, turning back to Natasha.

“I was barely seven or eight when we moved out of there,” he explains to her and Maria. “The whole apartment complex has been abandoned for a few years now, but I don’t know if it’s been torn down or bought out by now. Plus, I know for a fact I’ve never seen him there since we didn’t even meet until I was in high school.”

“It still could be worth a look,” Natasha points out, and Maria nods in agreement when Natasha looks over at her. Even Sam seems to tilt his head, considering this.

“I’ll head over there tomorrow, then.”

Natasha hums. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll meet you at your restaurant at noon and then we’ll drive over.”

The tone of her voice makes it sound like an offer, though Steve can tell by the quirk of her lips that it’s not exactly up for negotiation. Out of the corner of his eyes, he catches Maria and Sam smirking, but he ignores them as Natasha blinks up at him, her green eyes glinting again as she holds his gaze from under her long eyelashes.

And really, what can he do other than nod? They both know he was just going to ask her to come along, anyway.

... ...

“So, a little bird told me that you have a date tomorrow.”

Natasha smirks as she steps out of the hallway to find Tony in her kitchen, his back to her as he leans in to rummage in her fridge. He doesn’t have a copy of her key, but considering he was the one to program the Stark Industries security system that her building uses, she’s never surprised when he lets himself in, nor is she surprised when he helps himself to her food. She doesn’t have much of it, anyway. She usually dines out or orders in, so chances are that anything he finds was put there by him to begin with.

“Well,” he adds, a container of blueberries in hand as he shuts the fridge and spins around to face her. “Those exact words weren’t used, but I read between the lines.”

“I think that’s considered _rewriting the lines_ ,” she retorts, wrinkling her nose as he pops the lid open and tosses a blueberry into his mouth. “You’re supposed to rinse first.”

He gives her a look. “Hardly the most dangerous thing I’ve done, dear cousin.” Natasha shrugs a shoulder. Fair enough. “I see you didn’t deny my statement.”

“If you’re asking if I’m seeing Steve tomorrow, then your answer is yes,” she replies, sitting down on the stool opposite of where he’s leaning against the kitchen island. “And if you’re going to play twenty questions with me for Uncle Howard’s benefit, or more so for your own amusement, you’re buying dinner this time.”

He rolls his eyes as she opens a drawer by her hip and grabs the stack of takeout menus inside, tossing them onto the counter. “I’m always the one buying dinner,” he argues.

“That’s because you’re always the one being nosy.”

He cracks a grin, popping another blueberry into his mouth. “How else am I supposed to figure out what’s going on in your life?” He glances back down at the menus for a moment before sliding one for one of their favorite sushi places back over to her. “I know my dad asked you to keep an eye on him, be his friend all that,” he goes on, and Natasha glances up to meet his gaze as she gathers the menus into a stack once more. “But just because he wants to dig up skeletons doesn’t mean you have to join him.”

She pauses, tilting her head at her cousin. “You’re worried.” It’s a question and an observation at the same time, and she knows she’s right when Tony glances away. Her thoughts flit back to her conversation with Peter just a few nights ago, about Tony not seeing eye to eye with his father on Natasha’s role in all of this.

It’s not as if she hadn’t taken Peter’s words to heart, but maybe it still wasn’t enough. Maybe she should’ve read between the lines, too.

“Joseph Rogers went _missing_ ,” Tony says slowly, his voice softer now, and he sets the blueberries down as he leans in a little closer. “So, yeah, I’m going to worry, especially if you start pulling on all of these threads with Steve. Sometimes—” He stops himself suddenly, something flickering in his eyes too quickly for her to catch before he’s glancing away again. “Sometimes it’s okay to let things play out on their own. I mean, the truth comes out sooner or later, doesn’t it?” He meets her eyes. “Is it really worth the risk?”

Natasha simply blinks back at him. For the first time in what feels like forever, she doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what to _think_.

Tony stands a moment later, though, and waves a hand vaguely at the takeout menu. “Let’s skip on the spicy tuna tonight, alright? I don’t think my stomach can handle the drama,” he tells her, and then turns and walks toward the hallway bathroom without giving her a chance to respond.

Which means that, at least for tonight, this conversation is over.

... ...

He can’t remember the last time he was in his old neighborhood, but it had to have been almost a decade ago, if not more. He doesn’t remember much from when he and his mom lived here, but he doesn’t think it’s a stretch to assume the place didn’t look that much better back then than it does now. It’s not falling apart, exactly, but it definitely feels as if no one’s been in the building for a few years. Still, it’s not in a completely shitty area, and the entire plot of land that building takes up is a decent size, especially for New York. Steve doesn’t know a damn thing when it comes to buying and owning properties, but it’s hard to believe that people have let this place just sit here all these years.

Today, though, he hopes this works in his favor. If there _is_ anything in their old apartment, he might actually have a chance at finding it.

“Does it bring back memories?”

Steve turns to Natasha beside him in his passenger seat, a small smile playing at her lips, her eyes bright with curiosity, and he breathes out a chuckle. “Not really,” he admits. He wonders if he should feel some kind of guilt, knowing his mother must’ve worked her ass off when they lived here and yet, he doesn’t really remember any of it.

What he remembers is the nicer, newer apartment right next to the Manhattan Bridge that they’d moved into when they’d left this place. He remembers the private school he’d attended and the five-star restaurant his mother managed, and he remembers having his pick at colleges because tuition wasn’t something to worry about. He may not have been at the very top of the social class, but he sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to relate to what his life would’ve been like if they stayed _here_ , either. Back then, he hadn’t known his father owned the building they moved into and owned the entire chain of restaurants his mother worked for. He hadn’t known his mother had refused to take money tied to the Families until his father convinced her to do it—not for herself, but for _Steve_. His mother wanted to give him the world, and she could do that with his father’s help.

“I doubt we would’ve even ended up in a place like this if Mom had let my father help from the start,” he adds after a moment, his voice quiet and a little rough.

Natasha nods, her gaze shifting back onto the old apartment complex. “When we found out about you, I wondered how anyone could’ve ever convinced Joseph to cut ties with his son, especially one that was also his firstborn. He adored Wanda and Pietro, so why keep _you_ hidden?”

He breathes out a chuckle. “I wondered that, too. There’s a decent age gap between me and the twins, which meant that, for almost a decade, I would’ve been his only heir. So why let my mother take me away in the first place? And why insist on getting involved _after_ Wanda and Pietro were born, when he had a reason to cut ties completely?” He shakes his head, and he knows Natasha catches the gesture, even though her stare is still trained forward. “All I could come up with is that my mother asked, so he listened.”

Steve turns toward Natasha in the same moment she looks at him. “Who would’ve thought that Joseph Rogers was such an old romantic?”

“He had to have been to win my mother over in the first place,” Steve says, and Natasha hums softly, her eyes twinkling. “Do you really think we’ll find something here?”

She rubs her lips together and he tries not to get distracted by the motion. “Yeah, I do,” she admits. For a moment, he’s almost certain that she’s going to say more. He can see it in her eyes that she’s _thinking_ more, but then she blinks and whatever the thought is, it’s gone. “Are you ready?”

He chuckles again. “Not a chance in hell, but let’s go,” he says, relishing in the soft laugh that follows as they open their doors.

He locks the car once they’re both out, and then Natasha falls into step behind him as he makes his way up one of the outer staircases and onto the third floor, following the rusted numbers nailed to the doors until he finds the one Clint had dug up under Sarah Rogers. It’s not locked when he goes to turn the knob, but considering how long this place has just been sitting here, Steve isn’t all that surprised. It may be quiet right now, but he doesn’t doubt that people come in and out of the building for shelter at night.

And honestly, he thought maybe being inside would jog something in his head. He was young when they left, but not so young to not remember anything at all, even vaguely.

But as he steps into the small living room and even smaller kitchen, all he sees is an old, empty apartment. He can’t imagine his mother even having to see this place, let alone live in it for eight years. It’s not as if she’d been extravagant with the money his father gave them when they moved out of here, either, but still.

He doesn’t really know what he feels about it, about being here—but Natasha seems to sense what little unease it’s stirring up, because she places a hand on his arm, just above his elbow, and he turns to find her peering up at him. But there isn’t pity in her eyes; just that same, simple curiosity.

He gives her a small smile, nodding once, and she pulls her hand away as she walks further into the kitchen and starts pulling open the cabinets.

Steve follows her lead, stepping into the tiny bathroom and yanking the shower curtain back, pulling open the cabinets under the sink and even lifting the lid to the tank of the toilet. But he’s not surprised to come up empty.

Natasha doesn’t seem to have had any luck in the kitchen, either, because she’s pushing open the door to the bedroom when he walks out of the bathroom. For a fleeting second, he almost has the urge to tug her back; just because the place seems empty doesn’t mean someone might not be squatting in here, even this high up.

But he doesn’t doubt that she can handle damn near anything thrown at her, and also, he’s right behind her if anything happens.

The bedroom is just about as small and empty as the rest of the apartment, and there’s nothing in the closet when Natasha opens it, but she steps inside, anyway, running her hand against the wall as she does a small spin around the tiny space. The top half of the drywall is plain and exposed, the paint chipped and faded, but the bottom half is lined with wood panels. It seems like it was just meant for some attempt at adding a bit of contrast to the simple apartment—he’d seen the same wood paneling on an accent wall in the bathroom—but, as she runs her hands over it, applying a gentle pressure every few inches, she hits a spot that makes her pause. She glances over her shoulder at him.

Then she pushes harder and the panel shifts, then slides out of place, and Natasha gently pulls it back.

Vaguely, he’s aware of chiming filling the air—a call, he realizes a second later, when Natasha pulls her phone out of her pocket—but he’s too focused on the locked metal box that’d been hidden behind the panel to even flinch at the sudden noise.

Son of a bitch. There _was_ something here this whole time.

“Tony?” Natasha says into her phone as Steve gently picks up the box. He crouches down, peering into the tiny cove to see if something else could’ve been hidden behind the box in there, but it’s empty. He straightens back up, giving the box a gentle shake, and he hears something shift inside. “Okay, okay. I’ll be right there.”

Steve turns to Natasha as she hangs up, alarm tugging at his chest when he sees her expression.

“Someone put a car through the front of the club,” she says, and Steve jerks back in surprise. “We’ve got to go.”

... ...

She’s not surprised that she’s the last of the family to make it to Uncle Howard’s place in Manhattan since she and Steve were coming from pretty deep into Brooklyn, and, despite the obvious tension in the room, the fact that everyone eyes her and Steve almost makes her want to laugh. Almost. She thinks there are more pressing things to be concerned with than the fact that she’d been with Steve, something that everyone had to have already known about considering Tony had brought it up, but whatever. She contemplated asking Steve simply to drop her off, and if he’d had somewhere to be, she wouldn’t have minded. But, for some reason, she feels better knowing he’s with her.

Even though he likely knows even less of what’s happening than she does, there’s something about his presence that’s comforting.

The closest to the foyer are her parents, and something odd tugs at Natasha’s chest when her mother comes over to touch her hair gently, eyes sweeping over Natasha as if assessing that she’s okay. Even if they didn’t know she’d been with Steve, they would’ve at least known by her location on her phone that she hadn’t been near the club when the crash happened. Incidents like this have definitely happened before, even if they hadn’t been quite as aggressive, yet Natasha has never seen her mother look so _worried_.

“Thank you for bringing my daughter here.” Natasha’s father holds a hand out to Steve, which Steve shakes firmly as he nods. “Pardon our interruption.”

Steve glances at Natasha as he shakes his head, then meets her father’s eyes again. “Family is always worth an interruption,” he replies, and Natasha swears she sees her father’s expression cracks with a smirk. Then Steve turns to Natasha, touching her back gently. “I should get going.”

“No, stay,” Natasha’s mother tells him, and Natasha raises her eyebrows a little, surprised. Her mother smiles. “You’re Family now.”

“I agree,” Uncle Howard chimes in, offering Steve a smile as he walks up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Considering your establishments have been hit, too, we should try comparing notes.”

Natasha watches as some look of understanding passes between them, and then Uncle Howard drops his hand as Steve nods.

“Or maybe we should just ask his cop friends,” a voice chimes, and, for a fleeting moment, Natasha’s entire body tenses the way it always does whenever Anton speaks. She smooths her expression out before she turns to where Anton is leaning back in one of the leather armchairs in the living room, Ivan hovering over his shoulder and not at all attempting to be subtle about his clear contempt of Steve being invited. His father, however, almost seems _pleased_. “They’d probably know all about this, wouldn’t they?”

Natasha feels Steve’s fingers flex where they’re still placed against her back, but, out of the corner of her eye, his expression doesn’t even shift.

Before Steve can respond, though, her Uncle Howard does it for him. “I’m sure they’d love to hear from you, too, considering you and Ivan were the ones at the scene.”

Anton flinches ever so slightly as Ivan sits up straighter, his jaw clenching. Natasha has to press her lips together to fight off a smirk.

She turns to look at Steve as they follow her parents and Uncle Howard into the living room, and she feels his thumb against her back, moving in a small, almost soothing sort of stroke, and her lips tug into a smile as she turns away.

... ...

He doesn’t realize how late it’s gotten until the door to his office opens and Pietro sticks his head through, smirking when he sees Steve. “Why am I not surprised?” his brother asks, stepping all the way inside and kicking the door shut behind him, and Steve breathes out a chuckle as Pietro sets two pizza boxes down on top of all the paper Steve has scattered across the desk. Pietro flashes his teeth in a grin. “Our sister is having dinner with Clint and Laura and the kids, so it looks like it’s my turn to make sure you’re fed.”

Steve offers a wry smile. “Tell me that you at least used one of my accounts to pay for these.”

“Always,” Pietro replies, and Steve laughs, setting his laptop aside as Pietro drags a chair closer to the desk. Rather than sitting down, though, he walks over to the mini bar in the corner, grabbing two bottles of wine and two glasses before walking back over. “A glass of prosecco for your pesto pie,” he says, handing over one of the bottles and one of the glasses, “and a nice merlot for my pepperoni.” Steve laughs, pours his drink as Pietro does, too, and then flips one of the boxes open. “We don’t leave until you finish.”

Steve arches an eyebrow. “Finish the pizza or finish the wine?”

“Whichever comes first, which most likely be the wine, considering the look on your face before I got here,” Pietro says, waving a hand vaguely at his own face as if in emphasis before taking a gulp of his own wine. “This doesn’t have anything to do with your little field trip with Nat today, does it?”

Steve exhales a breath as he leans back in his chair. “Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to think about it after what happened at their club,” he admits, which seems like it should be ridiculous, all things considered, but his thoughts had been elsewhere by the time he left Howard’s. He offered to drop Natasha back at her place, but her parents wanted to do take her themselves and Steve wasn’t about to argue. Someone had driven a car into the establishment that their daughter manages, and whoever had done it had done so in broad daylight, too. This fact clearly bothered them, and as reluctant as he’d been to leave Nat, he could only imagine what Edward and Melina must’ve felt.

Because it’s clear that this wasn’t just some drunken accident. It felt intentional, but whether it was intended for all of the Starks or for Natasha, specifically, was unclear.

“They have any ideas who it could’ve been?” Pietro asks. Steve shakes his head, and his brother doesn’t look surprised.

There are a lot of people in this city that could have it out for the Starks, just like there are a hell of a lot of people that could have it out for their family, too. That’s why it’s been so damn hard to figure out if all the busted operations are as random as they seem.

Steve has a hard time believing that they are, but honestly, he doesn’t want to get into that again. He does have something else he thinks they should talk about, though.

“We found something, by the way,” Steve says, and Pietro pauses as he’s pulling off a slice of pizza, eyebrows raised. “There was a box hidden in the drywall.”

“Well, shit,” Pietro says, more to himself than to Steve, and his eyebrows furrow. “I’m guessing you haven’t opened it yet?”

Steve’s mouth hitches in another wry smirk. “Not yet. Natasha got the call from Tony right after, so I’ve been a little distracted ever since.”

“Makes sense,” Pietro says with a nod, picking up his slice of pizza and taking a bite. Despite everything, Steve smiles; for as nosy as Pietro can sometimes be, his brother doesn’t ever ask more than he thinks Steve is willing to tell, or maybe he just trusts that Steve will fill him in on his own, whenever he’s ready. And even when Pietro does prod for answers, it never feels like he’s backing you into a corner. It’s comforting, honestly, and maybe that’s why he’s pretty damn good at getting someone to open up.

Steve takes a gulp of his wine, considering his words before asking, “Do you think Dad had something worth hiding in a condemned building?”

Pietro grins, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did,” he admits. “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but…”

He trails off with a shrug, and Steve exhales a laugh, because, _yeah_.

Joseph Rogers has been running the streets of New York for decades. He likely has more than just one or two secrets worth locking in a box.

“You want me and Wanda there when you open it?”

Steve takes another gulp of wine, finally pulling out a slice of his own pizza. “It’s your choice. I’d never keep you away if you want to be involved, but since you asked, I think you should let me take care of it for now,” he admits. “It could be nothing, but if it _is_ something, I’d rather my ass be the only one on the line if I could help it.”

This time, Pietro’s eyes are glinting when his grin widens. “It’s fucking scary how much you sound like our old man,” he says, and Steve lets out a laugh, clinking his wine against his brother’s when Pietro lifts up his glass.

... ...

Natasha is always aware of her surroundings (she has to be, considering she’s got a rather infamous face) but maybe even more so ever since the incident at the club. From her table in the corner, she has a perfect view of the doors of the coffeehouse, so she spots Wanda the moment the girl walks in. It doesn’t take her long to see Natasha, too, as her gaze instinctively sweeps across the room, and Natasha finds herself letting out a soft laugh when Wanda’s smile brightens, wiggling her fingers at Natasha in a wave. She places her order at the counter, dropping her change in the tip jar, and Natasha pulls her purse off of the other chair and onto her lap so Wanda can join her at the table.

“I was hoping I’d get to see you today,” Wanda tells her, and Natasha simply smiles because, honestly, she’s not surprised.

Word has always travelled around fast among the Families, but especially when incidents like yesterday occur. Though, considering the mess of cop cars and police tape that must’ve been posted around the club, it’d be hard not to know about it right away. She and Steve were still at her Uncle Howard’s when Wanda texted to check on her.

“Well, here I am,” Natasha quips, and though Wanda lets out a giggle, the concern is still clear as day in her eyes. Natasha reaches over, tucks some of the girl’s long hair behind her ear. “I’m alright,” she says simply, and, after a moment of holding her stare, Wanda’s body eases with a nod. “What about you?”

It's been a few days since the drive-by, but still. It happened just earlier this week, and the fact that two accidents occurred so close together is just…

It hardly seems like a coincidence, but for now, all she can justify her thought with is intuition, and she knows she’s going to need something more concrete to convince the rest of the Family that this may not be as simple as they want it to be.

“I feel like you do, I would think,” Wanda admits, giving her a small, knowing sort of smile and a shrug.

Natasha exhales a laugh; yeah, that sounds about right. “I’d imagine that you have more eyes on you, though,” she points out, because she knows Steve, and she knows Pietro and Clint, too. “In fact, I’m surprised you don’t have someone hovering over your shoulder right now.”

Wanda’s eyes twinkle, her smile widening. “Oh, I do,” she says, and Natasha follows the girl’s gaze out the glass and onto the car across the street.

A _cop_ car, to be specific. It’s one of the newer ones that almost seem like it’s meant to be undercover—the ones that are all black, with sleek lights and far subtler decals that blend into the color pretty damn well— but it _is_ a cop car, nonetheless. Natasha feels confused (and maybe a little bit wary, too) for a moment, but her gaze shifts back onto Wanda’s face before the girl has turned away, catching her calm, bright expression—and then Natasha feels her lips tug into a smirk as she realizes who must be in that car.

_Bucky._

“Well, isn’t this a rather ironic development?” Natasha muses, and Wanda turns to look at her. “Quite an unusual choice in bodyguard for a mafia princess, don’t you think?”

Her cheeks brighten in a light blush even as she shakes her head. “It was probably just Steve’s doing,” she tells Natasha. “I think Steve could tell that all of their hovering was getting to be a little much. At least this way, I’d have a little more breathing room.”

“I doubt anyone would set up their little sister with a handsome man ready to be her knight in shining armor,” Natasha counters.

“ _Nat_ ,” Wanda laughs.

“Don’t worry, you know I’m good at keeping secrets.” Natasha stands, setting her purse down on her chair. “I’ll even give you some private time to ogle him while I run to the restroom,” she adds with a wink, and Wanda laughs again with another shake of her head as Natasha walks over to the bathroom on the opposite side of the café.

There’s another small table in the corner by the bathrooms, one that Natasha had noticed a blonde woman sitting at when she first walked in, so she’s not surprised to see an emptied mug of coffee still on the table with a receipt half-tucked under it.

What does surprise her, though, is the signature swirled at the bottom of the receipt:

 _Sarah Rogers_.


	3. part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a few weeks ago, Steve had almost used those very words as he struggled to explain to his best friends why he couldn’t just use his new role in the Family to turn them in. They’re still criminals, after all, and Steve had been convinced that he would’ve done exactly that if it wouldn’t have meant putting his brother and sister on the line as well. Now? He knows he couldn’t do it so easily. Honestly, he couldn’t do it at all, because he’s not just Family in name and not just in their eyes. He’s Family in his own eyes, too.
> 
> He doesn’t want to walk away from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's a confession: I kept changing the end of this chapter and then just ended up taking that scene out entirely because it got super long and I felt like it was... too much? This may or may not bump the chapter count up to 7 but for now there are still only 6 parts, so let's celebrate for being (technically) halfway through this 'verse! I'll try my hardest to keep it down to only 3 more chapters, though, so the last three parts might just be super long. I hope you darlings won't hate that!

Natasha seems distracted, but considering everything that happened yesterday, he figures she’s got a few good reasons to be. He asked if she wanted to talk about it when she first got to his place, but she’d given him this coy little smile and asked, “Talk about what?” and he’d simply chuckled and taken it as his cue to leave it, at least for now. She must’ve spent the entire day sorting things out at the club with Howard; if she wants to take her mind off of it, if only for a few hours, then he can give that to her. He _wants_ to give that to her, and honestly, the little smile she’s giving him right now, with her eyes twinkling and her cheeks slightly flushed from the wine, is entirely worth it.

“I ran into your sister this morning,” she tells him, passing over her empty glass when he holds a hand out for it. “She had interesting company.”

Steve breathes out a laugh, pouring her more wine (they’re both on their fourth glass) before handing it back. “Her _interesting company_ invited us to breakfast tomorrow, by the way,” he says, and Natasha raises her eyebrows, her eyes sparkling in pleasant surprise. “Yeah, I know,” he says with a shake of his head, filling his own glass and then setting the bottle back down on the coffee table. “Technically, he said he and Sam wanted _you_ there, and Wanda followed up by saying that she convinced Pietro to join us.”

Natasha laughs, her voice slightly raspy from all the wine. Steve feels his lips curve in response to the sound and he glances at her lips, but only for a second.

“Now _that_ is a conversation I would’ve loved to see.”

Steve exhales a chuckle. “I think they’re all just doing it to make some sort of statement. I overheard Clint advising Pietro to play nice, establish a united front for my sake.”

Even as he says the words, though, he knows they’re not quite right, and the little grin Natasha gets is all the reassurance he needs. “They’re doing it for _you_ , Steve,” she corrects, her voice lilting in amusement. “If this was just about making a statement, there are a dozen other ways they could’ve done that without throwing more fuel on the fire by taking two detectives to lunch. Although,” she adds with a tilt of her head, “I have no doubt that Pietro will insist otherwise until he warms up to Bucky and Sam.”

Steve feels himself smirk. Yeah, he doesn’t doubt that, either. His brother is stubborn as hell and not the type to like anyone at first.

That doesn’t mean that he immediately _dislikes_ anyone, though. He’s simply wary, and maybe that’s because, when he does decide to trust you, he’s almost loyal to a fault.

He’d told Steve last night that he’d been following the Asgards around ever since the drive-by, and Steve knew that wasn’t just another impulse of his. Pietro could be a little reactive sometimes, that’s for damn sure, but something like this – accusing another member of the Family – is something he wouldn’t have taken lightly. Wanda _thinking_ that she saw the car would’ve only been enough to raise suspicion, but it’d been Bucky vouching for his fellow officer identifying the car, too, that convinced Pietro it was a lead worth looking into. Maybe he doesn’t trust Bucky, but he trusts Steve, and that was enough for him to consider Bucky’s hunch about the drive-by being intended for Wanda.

(And Steve knew he didn’t need to remind Pietro to be careful, but he’d said it, anyway, and his brother hadn’t even rolled his eyes or quipped about him being overprotective.

They both know how dangerous things will get quickly if anyone finds out what Pietro is doing, let alone what they might be accusing the Asgards of.)

“Speaking of the twins,” Natasha adds after a moment, her voice softer now, some of the amusement fading from her expression when Steve looks at her. “They didn’t want to be here for this?”

Steve doesn’t need to ask what she means. _This_ , as in finally opening the damn box on the table that they’d found in his mother’s old apartment.

It hadn’t been his only reason for inviting her over tonight; in fact, he never even mentioned in when they made the plans. He’d genuinely wanted to see her, to check on her after everything that happened yesterday, but he also knows she would want to be there to open it with him and honestly? He didn’t even consider doing so without her.

“I told them it was their choice, but that I also didn’t want to put them through it in case it was something shitty,” Steve tells her.

“Willing to carry that burden all on your own, huh?”

He shrugs, staring down into his wine glass. “Something like that, I guess. The two of them have been through a hell of a lot more than I ever have.”

“And you want to, what? Pay your dues?” She gives him a look. “That’s not how family works, Steve.”

He chuckles faintly. “No, I know. It’s not that. I guess—” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head, turning to her with a wry sort of smile. “I know I’m the helpless one out of the three of us, but I guess I just want to protect them if I can. They were the ones that were raised by Dad. If something shitty about him is in that box…”

He trails off, stopping his own thoughts again, but he knows by the look in her eyes that Natasha doesn’t need him finish his sentence.

He knows that there could be nothing important in this box, or if there is, it could be something Pietro and Wanda have already known. It’s not as if he plans on keeping it a secret from them, either. He doesn’t even know _why_ it feels important for him to see it first, but it does, and his siblings trust his judgment.

Natasha gives him this little smile. “You’re a good brother,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper before she takes a small sip of her wine. This time, she’s watching as his eyes shift down to her lips again, and he lets his gaze linger for a moment before turning away, smiling into his own glass. “So, shall we get this show on the road?”

“Might as well,” he murmurs, taking a gulp of wine before setting it aside.

Considering how old the metal box must be, it doesn’t surprise Steve that it only takes a few tries to get it open. That should’ve been his first clue that there might not be anything incriminating in here. There may not have been as many ways to keep things locked up back then, and it’s not as if this box was somewhere easy to find, but still. Going through the offices and coming up empty had shown Steve just how careful a man his dad was, so he wouldn’t have left anything important just sitting in this thing.

And Steve thinks he’s right, for the most part. The box is slim and rather small, so there’s nothing more than a few photos and folded pieces of paper inside.

Sketches, he realizes, when he unfolds the one sitting on top. The penciled scene looks vaguely of a grand building in an open field with a mountain range along the horizon, and there’s something about the architecture that seems like it should make it seem distinct, but the lines are too rough to really tell.

The rest of the sketches are more of the same – a few snowy landscapes, more mountain ranges and more buildings with unique silhouettes – so Steve sets them aside and picks up the small stack of photographs instead, flipping them over to find his mother’s face smiling back at him. She’s younger here, her hair brighter and longer and half-covering her face as it’s angled away from the camera, and the color from the photo is faded from years of sitting, but Steve knows without a doubt that this is his mother.

“She’s beautiful,” Natasha says quietly, her leg pressing against his as she leans in. “You have her smile.”

Steve feels his chest squeeze as he exhales a laugh. He’s heard that before, but even now, he doesn’t quite understand it. He _knows_ he looks almost exactly like his father and that he always has, but he’s also always been told that he has his mother’s smile, too.

“Dad says that all the time,” he tells her, handing over the photo for her to take a closer look, and he watches as she gently traces it with her fingertip. “I don’t really see it.”

“I do,” she replies simply, her eyes flickering to his. “Trust me, you look just like her.”

“Okay.” His chest squeezes again, and he holds her stare for a moment longer before exhaling a breath, turning back to the small stack of photographs in his hand.

There are a few more of just his mother, a few of his parents together and then a few of them with Steve, but that’s it, so he sets them aside with his father’s sketches and picks up the worn leather journal, flipping it open. At first glance, it actually looks more like his mother’s swirling handwriting than his father’s, but before Steve can actually read anything, something slips out from between the pages. He picks it up from his lap, flipping it over, and then his heart slams against his ribcage at the face he sees.

 _Melina_.

Steve has only ever seen her face in photos a few times and only once in person, and she’s much younger in this photo, but he knows it’s her—and he can tell by the way Natasha inhales sharply beside him, her entire body going completely still, that she knows it, too.

He recognizes his father standing next to Melina, his face much younger, just like hers, but it’s without a doubt Joseph Rogers. There’s another man and another woman with them, too, the four of them all right around the same age, not even into their teens yet. The other woman has light, long hair and a sweet, smiling face that seems vaguely familiar, at least at first glance. She has both of her arms curled around Melina, her body half-angled toward hers with the embrace, and the photograph seemed to have caught the two of them in the midst of a laugh. On the woman’s other side is a man that’s tall and broad, his figure imposing and his expression gruff, even in his young age. Unlike the other woman, though, there’s nothing about this man that stands out to Steve, nothing about him that feels as if he’s seen his face before, maybe even in passing.

Then again, maybe he didn’t really recognize the woman at all. Maybe it’s simply the fact that he _does_ recognize his father and Natasha’s mother that’s throwing him off.

Never, not once, had his father mentioned having any kind of relationship with Melina Stark. Not one that came from _childhood_ , at least.

His father is close to the Starks as a family, of course, but he’d always been closest with Howard. And not even Howard has mentioned anything in particular to Steve. If his father had known Melina for so long, Howard Stark would’ve brought it up. Even if he already assumed Steve knew it already, the man would’ve worked it into at least one conversation, _especially_ since Howard knew Steve would be spending even more time with Melina’s daughter—except, _fuck_ , could that have been the reason for it all along?

Steve could never quite put a finger on why Howard offered his niece up as another advisor for Steve, and even Natasha admitted it didn’t quite make sense, either.

But maybe the idea hadn’t actually come from him. Maybe it’d come from Melina.

“What the fuck is this?” Natasha breathes, her hands shaking ever so slightly as she reaches for the photo, which Steve passes over to her before smoothing one of his hands over her back, gently circling. He watches her as she stares at the photo, the shock so crystal clear in her expression that it makes his heartbeat falter in his chest. Her eyes are a little bit wild as they snap onto his. “Why is my mother in this photo with Joseph?” she asks, though he knows she isn’t asking _him_ , specifically. “What am I looking at?”

To anyone else, her surprise almost seems _tamed_ , but Steve knows better.

She may not be _over_ reacting, but the fact that he can feel her trembling and that he can see the genuine surprise on her face means she isn’t trying to filter her reaction, or maybe she simply _can’t_ in this moment. But whether that’s because of all of the wine or because she trusts him, or both, is a matter for Steve to address another night.

“I don’t know,” he admits quietly. He doesn’t quite kiss her temple, but his lips brush against it when she leans into him.

She exhales, her gaze fixing back on the photo for another moment before picking up the journal it had fallen from. Steve knows this is his mother’s handwriting, and as he skims over her words while Natasha flips through the pages, it’s clear that this is more of a diary than anything else. Half of the pages are empty, and there’d been nothing other than this one photograph tucked inside of it. He’s not sure why a picture of Natasha’s mother and his father would be in _his_ mother’s journal of all places, especially since it’s from before his parents had even met—but, as Natasha flips to the last page that’s been written on, it’s clear they’re not going to get any kind of explanation for it, either.

She lets the journal fall closed as she places it back down in his lap, and then she’s standing, the photo in her hand as she starts to step around the coffee table.

Steve is up in the next second, gently but firmly grasping her by her arm, just above her elbow, and turning her back around to face him. He can practically see the thoughts flitting in her eyes as she murmurs, “I have to go.”

“Nat, no,” he argues. “We’ve both been drinking. A lot, might I add. You’re in no condition to drive home, and you’re not getting into a cab, either.”

“I’ll be fine,” she insists, about to turn around again, but he grasps her other arm, too, pulling her against him. He feels her struggle against his grip, but he also knows it’s only half-hearted. If Natasha wanted him off of her, he would’ve been flat on his ass right now.

“Someone purposefully put a car through the club you manage.” He feels his eyebrows furrow as he gives her a hard look. “You’re not getting in a fucking cab. And I know you’re not going to storm over to your mother right now and demand answers. Even half-drunk on wine, I know you’re a hell of a lot more strategic than that.”

She pulls back a little at his words, a reluctant flash of indignation – and also amusement – in her eyes. “I’m not half-drunk.”

He cracks a smile. “We went through an entire bottle of wine in an hour. You’re not half-sober, either.”

“I’ll be fine,” she repeats, though there’s less force behind her words this time. It’s not in defeat, he can tell, but she’s also stopped squirming against his hold. She shakes her head, not so much as flinching when he brings a hand up to cup her cheek, as if he’s touched her like this a dozen times. “I just need to think.”

“Then think _here_ ,” he tells her, almost pleading. She tilts her head up to look at him. “This was a big revelation for me, too, you know. Maybe I need you here to comfort _me_.”

Despite herself, Natasha breathes out a chuckle, rolling her eyes playfully. “Is that really the move you’re going with?”

“Is it working?” he asks, and she chuckles again, more of the tension ebbing from her body as she leans into him. “You can borrow something to sleep in, take Wanda’s room if you want. Hell, take my room and I’ll sleep in Pietro’s.” Natasha’s lips quirk and Steve feels his own smile widen a little in return. “I’ll get in a cab with you and make sure you get home if you really want to. But if all you’re going to do is worry about this alone in your apartment then you might as well worry about it here, with me in the other room.”

“In case you need comforting?” Her tone is mostly teasing, but there’s something about it that tells Steve that she knows what he really means, too.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, sliding his hand down her arm to gently grasp onto the photograph, and she lets him take it from her hand, twist around to set it on top of the coffee table behind him.

Her expression softens when he turns back to look at her. “Okay,” she says, barely above a whisper. He strokes her jaw again with the hand still cupping her cheek, his thumb only an inch away from the corner of her lips, and then he pulls away.

... ...

Natasha can’t remember the last time she slept in. She’s always gotten up early to take a run, even when she was younger; a habit she picked up from running with her father almost every morning, and one she continued even when she no longer in school and didn’t need to keep up some kind of schedule. But she likes having the routine, and she’s gotten so used to it that somehow, she knows before she’s even opened her eyes that she’s slept in, though a quick glance at her phone tells her it’d barely been by an hour.

There’s also a text from Maria that she’d sent last night. Honestly, Natasha had almost forgotten that she texted her at all, and after the revelation from that damn photograph, seeing Sarah Rogers’s signature on a receipt at the café seemed like something that happened days ago rather than just that morning.

And yes, she’d _still_ contemplated telling Steve about it, even though she and Maria agreed it would be best just to leave it, at least for now. _Sarah Rogers_ isn’t exactly an uncommon name, and considering the woman had gotten sick and passed away after Steve graduated high school—something Joseph told the Family himself when he and the twins attended her funeral—it seemed unnecessary bring up something that could be a coincidence. But that didn’t get rid of the feeling that she should’ve told him anyway.

It feels a little less important to bring up after last night, though.

She walks out into the hallway just as the door opposite of her room (well, _Wanda’s_ room) opens, and Steve steps out in nothing but a pair of jeans, a towel draped around his neck as he uses it to rub at his damp hair. He pauses when he sees her, his mouth hitching up at one corner in a crooked, almost boyish sort of grin.

“Good morning,” he greets, and, to his credit, his eyes stay on her face rather than skim down to the tank top and tiny pajama shorts she’d borrowed from Wanda’s closet.

“Good morning,” she echoes, her lips tugging in a smile as her eyes flit over his bared chest. “If that’s how you plan on going to breakfast, it’ll probably end up being free.”

He breathes out a laugh. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure when you’d be awake,” he replies, glancing down at his own torso for a moment before his gaze is back on hers, his thumb pointed over his shoulder. “The shower in my bathroom still needs to be looked at, so I just keep using this one.”

“No need to apologize.” Her smile widens, just a little. “This _is_ your place, after all.”

He presses his lips together, eyes glinting like he knows that she’s teasing—like he knows what she really means—and, since he doesn’t seem the least bit self-conscious, she lets her gaze fall back onto his chest. Now that she’s really looking, though, she can see them: thin, jagged lines scattered across his chest, all of them almost entirely faded into his complexion. But they’re _there_ , and there are a few dozen of them, and Natasha is willing to bet that she’d find a few dozen more on his back if she asked him to turn.

 _Scars_. He’s covered in scars.

“Steve,” she exhales, glancing up into his eyes, the amusement and teasing faded entirely from his face as he simply peers down at her. She reaches up, touching her fingertips to a particularly harsh line curling under his ribcage, and she feels rather than hears the way he takes a deep breath.

“I told you I was a scrawny kid,” he reminds gently, pulling the towel out from around his neck, revealing a few more slivers there, too. “Scrawny is easy to kick around.”

“This isn’t kicking around,” she argues, her voice barely above a whisper. “Did either of your parents know?”

She already has an idea of what the answer will be, so no, she’s not surprised when Steve shakes his head. “Mom always had a lot on her plate and I didn’t want to add another thing for her to worry about. By the time I met Dad, I only had a few months left until graduation.” He gives a small shrug. “It didn’t seem worth mentioning by then.”

Natasha’s chest tightens. “It could be decades from now and it would still be worth it to Joseph.”

“It wasn’t worth it _to me_ , Nat.” He reaches up, covering her hand with his where it’s still pressed against his chest. “Dad would’ve done worse to them in return.”

She feels a little bit like she can’t breathe, and her voice comes out quiet and tight as she asks, “You don’t think they deserve it?”

Steve’s mouth hitches in a smirk, something dark flickering in his eyes—and, in that fleeting moment, he looks so much like his father that Natasha nearly shivers.

“I think they deserved worse than what my dad would’ve done with them,” he admits quietly, curling his fingers around hers in a gentle, almost comforting sort of squeeze. “But I’d made a promise to myself to fight my own battles, _always_. It just so happened that by the time I was capable of truly fighting back, I hadn’t seen them for a while. I wasn’t going to waste energy on seeking them out, but if we crossed paths again, I’d make sure that they couldn’t kick anyone else around. That time just hasn’t come yet.”

 _Yet_.

His tone is casual, almost nonchalant, but she can hear the gravity of his threat in that one word.

And, not for the first time, Natasha thinks that maybe Steve Rogers is a lot more adept at this life than he realizes.

... ...

Steve honestly didn’t know what he anticipated when he and Natasha first got to the restaurant. There were a few dozen reasons for this to be a tense breakfast, or at least an awkward one, but he also didn’t think it would come to that. If any of them genuinely felt uncomfortable, they just wouldn’t have come.

But at this point, none of them are exactly on opposite sides, even if that’s still the case on paper. Bucky and Sam have been working their asses off to figure out who’d been behind the drive-by, and whether that’s because it’s their job as detectives or that’s because of their loyalty to Steve doesn’t really matter. They’re doing what they can to look out for Wanda, and Bucky has been trading off with Pietro and Clint to watch over her, which is more than enough of a reason for Pietro to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, no, maybe Steve hadn’t expected all of them to argue the entire time.

But he hadn’t expected everyone to get along so damn well, either.

“Hardly even recognized him,” Bucky says through a laugh as he gestures a hand at where Steve is sitting across the table from him. Steve chuckles as he shakes his head. “He leaves for college and comes back, what? Almost a whole foot taller? With over a hundred extra pounds of pure muscle?”

“You know, I still thought maybe Dad had those photos of you when you were younger mixed up with some other poor sap.” Pietro grins, reaching behind Wanda to smack a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I didn’t realize student research projects allowed volunteers to be genetically modified,” he jokes, and Steve barks out a laugh, giving Pietro a half-hearted shove. Between them, Wanda shoots them both a warning look, though the way she giggles into her mimosa a moment later tells them she’s not actually pissed.

“I thought for damn sure I’d hear about him getting into _more_ fights now that he could do some real damage,” Bucky adds. “Of course, only Steve would decide to stay out of trouble _after_ he was able to throw a decent punch.”

Wanda’s eyes widen as she whirls her gaze onto her brother. “You got into fights?”

“Couldn’t keep the little punk _out_ of them,” Bucky answers for Steve. “Granted, he never started any, and he never threw the first hit. But Steve wasn’t about to let the fact that he was less than a hundred pounds and sent himself into an asthma attack half the time stop him from fighting back.”

His tone is proud more than anything else, even though Steve can hear the hint of exasperation. Steve can’t exactly blame the guy. It seemed like Bucky was always jumping in to save his ass, though the guy hardly minded. If anything, he probably _enjoyed_ putting those kids in their place. He just preferred Steve not to take the brunt of it first.

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve says simply with a shrug, glancing at Natasha beside him. She gives him an almost carefree sort of smile, but her eyes flash in the same way they did just an hour ago, as she traced over his scars with her fingertip—somehow burning bright and ice cold at the same time. He can almost see the calculation in her gaze, as if she plans on hunting down each and every asshole to lay a hand on Steve (he doesn’t doubt she has the means to, either) but he can also see something else. Pride, maybe. Back at his place, it’d almost look like there was awe in her eyes when he’d explained why he hadn’t sought out any sort of revenge against anyone that ever gave him a scar.

Seeing that praise in her eyes had felt damn good, but feeling her gentle, feather-light touch on his skin had felt even better.

Now’s not exactly the time to relive the memory, though. Not with his siblings and his best friends at the table.

She takes a sip of her mimosa as she holds his stare, that dangerous flash in her eyes shifting into amusement as she hides her smirk behind the rim of her glass.

He nudges her knee with his under the table, returning her smirk, but a groan from Pietro interrupts them, drawing their gaze onto his scowling face. “Speaking of bullies,” he mutters, and Steve follows his brother’s gaze across the street, feeling his body tense as he realizes who’s caught his brother’s attention.

Ivan.

Steve clenches his jaw. He’d heard of Ivan before they’d met, of course. Clint never had a single decent thing to say about him and Anton, and considering how mellow the guy usually is, that’d been one hell of an insight that just talking about those two seemed to piss Clint off. Evidently, that still hadn’t been a clear enough picture of them.

He couldn’t have cared less that Anton and Ivan clearly had it out for him and blatantly tried to provoke him into a fight the entire time he’d been with the Starks at Howard’s. What he _did_ care about, though, is the way they eyed Natasha while also completely dismissing the danger she would’ve been in had she been at the club when it’d been hit. Clint had told Steve that Howard put up with them out of some sort of loyalty; Anton _had_ been a key player in getting Stark Industries off of the ground, after all. But none of the Starks had ever liked him (apparently, half of the Family still doesn’t) and Steve had only been in their presence for five minutes before deciding he shared that sentiment.

“He seems like the kind of guy you’d want to hit for no real reason,” Sam comments.

“He is,” Wanda chimes in, turning away from Ivan and wrinkling her nose at her mimosa. “He may not even breathe in your direction, but if you threw the punch first, you’d still have plenty of reasons to justify it.”

“That bad?” Bucky’s voice is gruff. “Kind of sounds like you might be speaking from experience.” His eyes flit back to Ivan across the street, jaw ticking, and Steve is willing to bet his best friend is genuinely contemplating if it could be justified to punch the guy without being provoked.

But when Wanda huffs out a breath, his gaze shifts back to her, softening. “No, thankfully not,” she reassures. “But it’s hard not to know his business with the way he acts.”

“That’s for damn sure,” Bucky mutters into his coffee with a shake of his head. “Ivan’s got more hard evidence against him than anyone else in New York.”

“He’s sloppy and reckless,” Natasha agrees. “He doesn’t give a damn about casualties, and he sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about leaving his mark, either.” She rolls her eyes. “He likes notoriety for his ego, and he _loves_ that every cop in the city knows his face.”

“Isn’t that a thing, though?” Sam wonders. “A way of sending a message?”

“Our messages are far more discreet,” Natasha tells him. “If you don’t know how to cover your own ass, you sure as hell shouldn’t be threatening someone else’s.”

Sam’s lips twitch in a grin. “Sounds fair.”

“You also shouldn’t be putting anyone else’s ass on the line just for the hell of it,” Pietro adds, almost scowling. “He used to just be dick and a mild headache, but now he’s getting stupid and has the rest of us putting out all of his damn fires. I don’t know why the hell he’s still in the picture at all,” he adds to Natasha, arching an eyebrow.

“Trust me, neither do I,” she replies, and then tips her head back, draining the last of her mimosa. “He’s got a reputation.”

“Don’t you all?” Sam’s tone is more joking than condescending, if a little curious.

“Yes,” Wanda replies with a bit of a giggle. “It’s different, though.”

Bucky’s smile widens as Sam chuckles in amusement, neither of them arguing with her claim, and it makes something warm tug at Steve’s chest.

Just a few weeks ago, Steve had almost used those very words as he struggled to explain to his best friends why he couldn’t just use his new role in the Family to turn them in. They’re still criminals, after all, and Steve had been convinced that he would’ve done exactly that if it wouldn’t have meant putting his brother and sister on the line as well. Now? He knows he couldn’t do it so easily. Honestly, he couldn’t do it at all, because he’s not just Family in name and not just in their eyes. He’s Family in his own eyes, too.

He doesn’t want to walk away from them.

He doesn’t want to walk away from Bucky and Sam, either, but he isn’t going to pretend it’s that simple for them. For right now, though, he can appreciate that his siblings and his best friends finally seem to be getting along—and not just for his sake anymore, but because they want to.

... ...

“You’d be surprised how many ‘Sarah Rogers’ are in New York,” Maria says, pulling out a stapled stack of papers from her bag and tossing it onto the counter. Natasha glances at the photo of the woman on the top page (a brunette, though, not a blonde) before passing over one of the martinis she’d poured, and Maria takes it from her by the stem of the glass. “But only five of them showed any activity in Manhattan around the time you would’ve seen her at the coffeehouse. Of those five,” she goes on, sipping her cocktail as she flips to the page she wants, pointing her finger at the picture, “ _this_ one is the only one to match the barista’s description.” Maria arches an eyebrow. “Look familiar?”

Natasha hums, taking a moment to study the young woman, with her long, golden hair and hazel eyes.

“Vaguely,” she admits, which doesn’t really mean much. Maria already knows Natasha hadn’t gotten a good look at the woman’s face that morning in the coffeehouse with Wanda, and considering how many faces the employees there must see every hour, asking the barista for a description two days after can only be so reliable.

“She flew into town a few weeks ago but never checked in anywhere,” Maria informs, but something in her tone catches Natasha’s attention.

“And?” she prompts.

Maria smirks, her eyes glinting. “And that purchase at the coffeehouse is the _only_ purchase ever made on her card, other than her one-way plane ticket from London.”

Natasha can’t quite help the way her eyebrows lift in surprise. Well. That’s definitely unusual.

She knows Maria has been digging deeper into this woman, and Maria doesn’t wait for her to ask before she continues with, “So far I’ve only caught a few security camera sightings of her around Manhattan and Brooklyn. She’s been alone every time and she’s damn easy to lose track of.”

“Staying somewhere residential, or at least somewhere that doesn’t keep a digital record,” Natasha adds. “And only paying in cash, except for the coffeehouse.”

“Except the coffeehouse,” Maria echoes, arching an eyebrow. “I find it hard to believe she can get away with almost an entire month of never using her credit card and yet, she charges eight dollars for a latte and a croissant? She didn’t even pull it out to pay for her rental car.”

“She’s using a rental car?”

Maria nods. “I saw her getting into a car from a security camera and the license plate is registered with a car service, but her paperwork didn’t disclose any payment.”

Natasha feels something odd tug at her chest as she stares back at Maria. “A black compact car?” Natasha asks after a moment.

Maria pulls back a little, blinking. “How did you know that?”

Natasha exhales a sigh, taking a gulp of her martini before answering with, “Because there’s been a black compact parking across the street for the last three weeks that keeps catching my attention. Any chance you happened to see one on your way in?”

“Most likely, but I’ll have a look at the security feeds later to compare plates.” Maria tilts her head. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

“It seemed a little paranoid, even for me,” Natasha admits with a shake of her head. “Plus, my family has been on edge even before what happened at the club that I didn’t want to give them another reason to act weird.” She furrows her eyebrows, thinking back to when she’d had dinner with Peter, and when she’d had dinner with Tony. She thinks about how her parents seemed to be bothered by something more often than not recently, and somehow, all of it feels less and less like some kind of a coincidence.

Maria nods, and Natasha can practically see it in her eyes as her best friend tries to find any kind of immediate connection.

Before either of them can say anything more, however, Natasha’s phone chimes with a text and she flips it over on the counter, her body pausing as she sees that the message is from an unknown number. Maria leans forward to look at the screen, too, and Natasha sets her martini down as she swipes to open the text.

... ...

Steve can hear her laughter above all of the excitement and chatter already filling the restaurant where Clint and Laura are hosting Baby Nathaniel’s first birthday—and, not for the first time since arriving, his gaze drifts across the room to seek her out. They’ve only had a chance to talk a few minutes here and there, but considering it’s usually one of the kids that ends up pulling her away from him, he can’t complain. It’s easy to see that she’s the favorite, although Peter and Pietro seem to be fairly close in second place.

“Auntie Nat has always been the one the kids adore the most,” Wanda chimes as she floats up to his side, offering him a limoncello and rum cocktail. “Although I admit, it’s still a little strange to see each time,” she adds, laughing as Morgan Stark suddenly pops up from under one of the tables in an attempt to surprise Natasha.

Steve laughs, too. He gets what she means. It’s a little odd to see Natasha being playful, almost silly, when she’s almost always elegant and composed, or coy and tempting.

But he also knows that she likes to tease and she certainly loves her jokes—the cheesier and nerdier, the better—so maybe this side of her isn’t actually odd at all.

“While we’re on the subject of strange sights,” Wanda adds, her voice lilting in amusement, and Steve finds her eyes twinkling brightly when he turns to look at her with one eyebrow arched. “I noticed Nat was wearing the same clothes at breakfast as she wore the day before, when we bumped into each other.”

He chuckles. He’s been wondering when this would come up.

His sister has probably wanted to ask him right after they dropped Natasha off at her apartment after breakfast, but then he’d taken Wanda and Pietro back to his place to take a look through the box themselves, so they ended up having other things to discuss. As he’d guessed, neither of them knew the man and the woman in that photograph with their father and Melina, and they also hadn’t had any idea that their father knew Melina from before he met Howard, let alone before Edward and Melina were married.

The silver lining had been that neither of his siblings seemed pissed off by this new revelation. They may have been a little upset, but he’d anticipated that.

It might have made sense that their father wouldn’t have had the chance to tell Steve about this, but Wanda and Pietro lived with Joseph their whole lives. Hell, they’d practically grown up with the Starks. Melina could’ve told them _herself_ , or any of the Starks, for that matter.

Which makes it more likely than not that the Starks don’t know of it, either. Or, if they do, there’s a reason why everyone’s keeping quiet.

“I didn’t want her driving home after we’d been drinking,” Steve tells his sister, trying in vain to keep a straight face with Wanda practically beaming at him, “and I didn’t want her getting a cab, either. She borrowed your pajamas, by the way,” he adds. Wanda arches an eyebrow, giving him an expectant look. “She also slept in your bed.”

She pouts playfully, nudging his shoulder. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

“Wanda,” he laughs.

“You two are really good together,” she insists. “You’ve been spending so much time together, too. I thought you might’ve already…”

Steve rubs his lips together, glancing away with a shake of his head. _Yeah_ , he doesn’t really need his sister finishing that sentence. He gets that she’s not a little girl, but he still doesn’t really want to hear that his sister assumed he and Natasha have hooked up already.

“We both work long days, almost every day,” he points out. “We only really meet for dinner, and honestly, we’re both tired as hell most of the time.”

It’s the truth, but only really half of it. Yes, he and Natasha see each other almost every day, and it hadn’t taken long for them dining out to transition into them ordering in (mostly at her place, because he’d rather be the one to drive home afterward than her). They tend to meet up late, and Steve _is_ typically tired by the time they get around to eating, but that wouldn’t have been enough for him to say no if she asked him to stay the night. In fact, he tends to feel wide awake after they’ve spent the night talking.

He would be lying if he said he’s never thought of them being _more_. Honestly, he thinks he’s entertained the thought from the moment they met.

But he knew the reason she’d gone out of her way to see him at first had been because Howard asked her to, and after they’d developed a genuine friendship, he still hesitated because he knew she still felt apprehensive toward his friendship with Sam and Bucky.

But now, he can’t explain exactly why, but things feel different. Now it feels like they’re ready for _more._

“But you do like her, don’t you?” Wanda asks, and he can tell that it isn’t really a question. She just wants him to admit it.

Steve feels his lips tugging into a smile as he takes a sip of his cocktail. Across the room, Natasha has managed to steal Baby Nathaniel away once more, holding him with their faces close together as her gaze drifts across the room. Her eyes catch Steve’s, her smile widening as it’s half-hidden behind Nathaniel, and she waves.

“Yeah,” Steve answers, feeling his own smile widen. “Yeah, I do.”

Wanda lets out a giggle, wrapping an arm around his waist to squeeze him into a hug, and Steve chuckles as he leans down to brush a kiss atop her head. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks about how, just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have had a conversation like this with his sister. Not because she wouldn’t have cared, but because, as often as they tried to visit each other, their lives wouldn’t have been intertwined enough to for them to talk like this. Not specifically, anyway, and certainly not enough for her to have a preference on who he might be interested in. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have known who else was in his life, other than Sam and Bucky, and he wouldn’t have known the same for her or Pietro, either. He’d always felt he was close with Pietro and Wanda before, as much as the three of the could be, considering their circumstances.

But he hadn’t realized just how much _closer_ they could be if he could see them every day like he does now. If their lives were more involved on every facet.

And honestly, other than Sam and Bucky, Steve hadn’t had any particularly meaningful connections in his old life. He’d had friends, but none he allowed himself to get genuinely attached to. Who his father was had always lingered, and if push came to shove, Steve didn’t want to risk anyone getting tangled up in something they had no idea about if someone found out who he was and who his father was—and someone would’ve found out, even if his hand hadn’t been forced the day that his father went missing.

He’d gotten lucky that his two best friends had both ended up cops and put the dots together on their own, because Steve really wouldn’t have known how to tell them. He _hates_ that he put them in a tough spot by choosing to stay friends, but, at the very least, he knows that they’re more equipped to handle themselves.

And now, he has the luxury of becoming attached. After a lifetime of only having his parents and Wanda and Pietro, and Bucky and Sam, now he has the whole Family.

And he has Natasha.

... ...

With the club only barely starting repairs, Natasha brought everything she needed from the office back to her apartment, though truthfully, there’s not much for her to work on. Her father is the one directly speaking to the contractors to get the front of the club fixed, and since they won’t be open until that’s done, she only really needs to check in with management. She supposes this means she could drop in on either of her parents to give them a hand, maybe spend a few hours at Stark Industries with her uncle or help May at the diner. Natasha plans to soon, because she doesn’t really get to see May all that much, and because Peter always helps out, too, so they can hang out more.

But between looking into “Sarah Rogers” and trying to figure out why the hell her mother and Joseph Rogers were in that photograph together, she’s still got quite enough to keep busy. She’ll likely need to start making the rounds soon, though, before her family starts asking what she’s up to.

Unless you happen to be Tony, who decides to invite himself over unannounced to find out.

She gets a text from her cousin as she’s stepping out of the shower, asking what she wants for breakfast, which she knows is really just him giving her a head’s up that he’s on his way over. The last few days of digging haven’t turned up anything, so she figures she can take a break to tag along with whatever Tony has planned.

But when she sees Peter walk in through her door after Tony, she realizes that this is more than just her cousin being nosy and wanting to poke into her business.

Peter has a _terrible_ poker face, and right away, she knows something’s wrong. “What happened?” she asks, reaching over to push aside some of the longer chunks of his hair flopping into his eyes. “Why aren’t you in school?”

He hesitates, eyes flitting over Natasha as if worrying if something happened _to her_ , before reaching into his pocket as he says, “I got something this morning.” He pulls out his phone, swiping at the screen a few times, and then flips it around to show her the screen to show her a photo of herself leaving her apartment. It’s obvious it’s taken at a distance, just across the street, though considering that cameras on phones can get a decent zoom quality, she can’t say for sure how far away the person had truly been.

Peter swipes for her before she can respond, pulling up another photo of her, taken through the front window of the club before someone had put a car through it.

Natasha blinks down at the photo for a moment before glancing up, eyes flitting from Peter and Tony, and she watches the realization flash across both of their faces almost in the exact same second as they stare back at her.

“You’ve gotten one, too, haven’t you?” Tony asks, holding up another photo of her on his own phone.

Peter’s expression pinches even tighter with worry, if possible. “ _Nat_.”

“I did, just the other day,” she admits, turning to walk into the kitchen, knowing that they’ll follow. “Maria was here when I got it, so she knows, too.”

“The other day? What the hell, Nat?” Tony asks, setting the bakery box and tray with their coffees down on the island counter as Natasha drops onto one of the barstools. Peter immediately hops onto the one beside hers, spinning to face her. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Tony half-demands. Natasha doesn’t quite flinch at his tone, but she feels her surprise flit across her face before she can catch herself, and at this, Tony’s frustration seems to ebb almost entirely as he drops onto the other stool beside her. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she replies, and he nods once because he knows she’s being sincere. She knows he’s just worried and it makes him come off impatient.

On her other side, Peter judges his knee against hers. “When did you get your text?”

Natasha exhales, tugging the bakery box closer and popping the lid open as she replies, “The same day as Nathaniel’s party.”

“Is that why you haven’t told anyone yet?” Peter asks, although his voice sounds a little off, like he knows that isn’t quite right.

Natasha shakes her head, glancing from him to Tony. It’s not that she doesn’t trust them to keep quiet if she asks, but also, she doesn’t want them to _have_ to keep a secret from everyone else. Still, now that they’re obviously involved to some extent, she doesn’t really have a choice. She also thinks that they’re likely the only two out of the family to get these photos so far, because everyone else would’ve come to her the moment they a text themselves, just as Tony and Peter did; clearly, since Peter is skipping school.

“You can’t tell the family,” she insists. “You can’t tell _anyone_ , other than Steve and Maria. At this point, I suspect Wanda and Pietro might know, too.”

Confusion tugs at Tony’s expression. “They all got photos?”

“No. Or, if they did, they haven’t had the chance to tell me. But I’ve got more than just _this_ going on,” Natasha admits, waving a hand at where Peter’s phone is on the counter, his screen still pulled up to the photo of her, “and I’ll admit that, at this point, I don’t know what the hell to feel about all of it.”

“Wow,” Peter says quietly, studying her face. “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” His forehead creases. “And you’re sure you want to keep it from everyone else?”

“For now, it’s probably for the best,” she admits, her lips twitching in a wry smile. “Our family is pretty good at keeping secrets, anyway.”

... ...

Steve isn’t sure whether it’s reckless or just stupid for him to have Sam and Bucky here, but they were already near the brewery when they called to say they had news to share, and Steve figured that they’d at least have some semblance of privacy here in his office. People would talk—and _have been_ talking—every time Steve meets up with either of them no matter what, and honestly, it doesn’t feel so much like a threat anymore. He’s knows that both Howard and Nick would back him up with little hesitation, and even if Odin hasn’t entirely warmed up to Steve yet, he also wouldn’t jeopardize his standings with the other two Families simply because his daughter wants to cause chaos.

Clint didn’t even bat an eye when Steve told him that Sam and Bucky were coming, and if Steve had been looking for approval, that would’ve been all he needed.

“Anonymous tips?”

Steve glances at where Clint is sitting on the corner of the desk, arching an eyebrow, before turning back to Bucky and Sam sitting in the chairs placed across his desk. “There’s no way they were _all_ called in,” Clint argues, though his tone gives away the fact that at least part of him is genuinely considering this.

“I didn’t think so, either, but we’ve got all the call records to back it up,” Sam insists with a shake of his head. “Every damn one of those busts were tipped off, and most calls came in an hour beforehand, sometimes half an hour, but it still would’ve given the precincts a pretty generous chance to prep and then haul ass to each of the sites.”

“Well, shit,” Clint says on an exhale, swiping a hand over his face. “Now we know why they felt too damn consistent to be a coincidence.”

“Someone clearly had it out for you,” Bucky tells Steve.

Steve feels his lips twitch into a wry smile, but only for a moment, because then he’s glancing at Clint again. “It hasn’t just been our shipments, though,” he points out as he taps his pen to the desk for the sake of something to do. “Everyone’s been taking hits. Sabotaging me would make sense, maybe even cutting a few losses themselves to hide their own tracks. But all those shipments lost, all across the board?” Steve shakes his head. “It’d be a pretty damn risky plan, because now everyone in the Family is pissed.”

Clint nods, even as he adds, “Doesn’t mean it’s unfathomable. Someone just might be that reckless.”

“Or hold that big of a grudge,” Bucky chimes in.

Clint nods again, turning to Steve. “Could be Ivan. He sure as shit doesn’t think things through before acting. But then again, it’d be too damn obvious of an answer.”

“Yeah, but it’s still something worth looking into,” Steve points out. “And if anyone would be willing to piss off the whole Family for their own agenda, it’d be him. He’s barely loyal to his own father, let alone to Howard or anyone else. I doubt he’s pulling this off alone, though,” he adds, and all three men nod at this. Steve exhales sharply, shaking his head again. “What about the drive-by?” he asks, catching the way something dark flickers in Bucky’s eyes as he sits up a little straighter. “Anything new come up there?”

He knows they would’ve mentioned it themselves if anything substantial had turned up, but they don’t seem surprised that he’s asked.

“They got a match on the plate, which pretty much confirms what we knew about it being an Asgard car,” Sam answers. “No one we’ve interviewed from the scene so far has had any leads worth following, or any reason someone would be after them, specifically.”

“Other than Wanda,” Clint guesses.

Bucky nods, glancing from him to Steve. “Did Wanda have a reason for being there at that time, something that could’ve been planned? I know we asked already—”

“No, I know.” Steve offers a wry smile. “She won’t mind if you need to question her again, though.”

But Bucky shakes his head with an exhale. “She and I have already combed over the details of everything she could remember. She was there getting dinner, but it was something she’d done on an impulse because she’d been shopping nearby.” Something flickers in his eyes before he adds, “I asked if she could’ve been followed. If she had even a damn second of paranoia at all that day, or any day before, that maybe someone had been watching her. She said she didn’t, but as soon as I thought about it—”

Steve feels his chest tighten. _Shit_. As soon as Bucky had said the words, they felt pretty fucking _real_ , and it felt like a damn good hunch.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Clint mutters. “Why the hell hadn’t we thought of that?”

Sam winces, looking annoyed with himself. It’s true that they’d assumed Wanda had been the target, but they’d also just assumed someone _knew_ she’d be there. She goes shopping in that area often enough that it would’ve made sense, but it was never anything she planned ahead of time, so how the hell could someone had anticipated it?

If someone had been following her, though, they wouldn’t have needed to know her schedule.

They would’ve just needed an opportunity.


	4. part four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha exhales a chuckle. “Honestly, it’s hard to picture my parents with a child at all, even if that child was me.”
> 
> It’s not the first time the thought has crossed her mind, though she’ll admit she doesn’t really know where the sentiment comes from. She’s never once felt as if her parents regret having her, or would choose any differently if they could. She knows they love her and she’s never once doubted that. Seeing her mother in that photo with Joseph Rogers had been shocking, but it also felt a little bit like something had finally clicked into place. At least now she understood why something always felt off about their story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY THIS TOOK THREE WEEKS TO POST! There are about a dozen reasons why it got delayed but none of them are all that compelling or dramatic, but here it is now and I hope it's at least half-worth the long wait? Also, for those who didn't catch my progress updates on tumblr, I'm going to keep the chapter count at 6 and these last chapters (this one included) will be longer.

“I know you aren’t nearly as chatty as Tony or Peter, but I’m starting to feel offended by how quiet you’ve been today.”

Natasha turns to find her Aunt Maria watching her, her eyes glinting as she sets a fork back down on the table arranged with plate settings. To her credit, the woman hadn’t acted the least bit surprised when Natasha asked if she needed help planning next month’s Stark Industries gala, even though Natasha had never shown much interest in her aunt’s role as an event planner before. And yes, her aunt could’ve had someone take over for her decades ago, but the woman loves it too much to give it up anytime soon.

Natasha gives a small smile and a shrug that she knows her aunt will take as an apology, and the woman exhales a laugh. “You think I would’ve learned by now that waiting for you Starks to offer up your problems is a lost cause,” Aunt Maria comments dryly.

“You’re a Stark, too, you know,” Natasha points out.

“By _marriage_ , darling. I don’t have the same stubborn gene as the rest of you, no matter how much your uncle and cousin like to claim otherwise.” Natasha’s smile widens as she shakes her head, and her aunt comes to stand in front of her, reaching up to brush a few stray strands of Natasha’s hair behind her ear. “If you were my son, I’d have to ask thirty questions before he ran out of witty remarks and finally confessed,” she adds, “but my much more sensible niece wouldn’t put me through that game, would she?”

“No, she’ll just keep her confessions to herself,” Natasha retorts, though her voice doesn’t sound as nonchalant as she’d intended.

She knows that her aunt notices it as well because her eyes twinkle. “Does this have anything to do with you spending all of your time with Steve Rogers these days?”

Despite herself, Natasha breathes out a laugh. She’s not particularly surprised that her aunt latches onto _this_ of all things, but she’ll admit that it’s a nice change in pace from having to talk about “Sarah Rogers” or theories on who the hell drove a car through the front of the club.

“Does that seem like something your niece would ever be distracted with?” Natasha asks.

Aunt Maria shrugs as she admits, “I didn’t think you could be distracted at all. Even as a toddler, you were so focused. It was a little unsettling for your parents.”

This makes Natasha pause. “They’ve never told me that.”

“Most children don’t know much about their parents in that sense,” her aunt points out as she perches herself on one of the many sample chairs artfully draped in chiffon and ribbons, patting the seat beside hers for Natasha to follow. “We tell you fun stories and we tell you about what you were like growing up, but we don’t necessarily tell you all the little things we had to learn, or how worried we were every hour of the day. Your parents were much better at hiding it than Howard and I, but they were no exception.”

Natasha exhales a chuckle. “Honestly, it’s hard to picture my parents with a child at all, even if that child was me.”

It’s not the first time the thought has crossed her mind, though she’ll admit she doesn’t really know where the sentiment comes from. She’s never once felt as if her parents regret having her, or would choose any differently if they could. She knows they love her and she’s never once doubted that. Seeing her mother in that photo with Joseph Rogers had been shocking, but it also felt a little bit like something had finally clicked into place. At least now she understood why something always felt off about their story.

It wasn’t something that was brought up much to begin with, but considering the circumstance as to why, Natasha hadn’t felt it was suspicious. The only reason her father and Uncle Howard had gone to Europe to begin with had been because her aunt and uncle were having problems with their marriage, though they’d never shared what the fighting had been about, nor had they really shared why the brothers had stayed on another continent for an entire year before Uncle Howard came back to sort things out with Aunt Maria. All Natasha knows is that her parents had met early into this trip and had Natasha overseas, and they’d gotten married only days after her father brought her mother back to the States with him. Natasha and Tony had always found the whole story odd, but they didn’t have any real reason not to believe what their parents told them, either.

“It was certainly a surprise when your father came home with you and your mother,” Aunt Maria says, and Natasha turns just in time to catch something flicker in her aunt’s eyes—amusement, maybe, though it’d been far too quick to tell. “He’s never been impulsive.”

“Neither has Mom,” Natasha points out. “And yet, she met Dad, had me, and moved to an entirely different country within the same year.”

“Your uncle likes to take credit for having that one influence over your father in that sense.” Her aunt smooths a hand over Natasha’s hair, her smile softening. “I know it seems like that year is something we want to forget, but without your uncle and your father taking that trip, we wouldn’t have _you_. I wouldn’t want things to be any different.”

Natasha gives her a small grin. “That’s because you and Uncle Howard like to pretend that I’m your daughter,” she teases, tilting her head as she adds, “though Uncle Howard definitely fusses over me as if that were true. Maybe even more so than my _actual_ father.”

There’s a pause before Aunt Maria asks, “Does that bother you?”

Natasha shakes her head. “He’s been that way my entire life, Aunt Maria. If it bothered me, I would’ve said something by now.”

“But something _is_ bothering you?” her aunt asks, and Natasha almost smiles at the tone of her voice. It’s one that she’s heard Aunt Maria use with Tony all his life; one that says she already knows the answer is yes and is expecting an explanation instead.

Natasha hesitates. She knows that Aunt Maria is willing to keep a secret for her if she asks, but her aunt would draw the line at staying quiet about Natasha potentially having a stalker, especially after what happened at the club. Honestly, Natasha is very well aware the two could be related, and then there’s also the possibility that “Sarah Rogers” may be tied to everything as well, but she’d rather have more to go off of before worrying the family. As soon as they know, they’ll be even less willing to let her out of their sight, and she’ll need as much time without one of them hovering over her shoulder as she can manage to find so she and Steve can look into her their parents’ connection.

And no, she doesn’t even consider asking about _that_ , either. She’s almost certain that her aunt and uncle have already known about it, and if they’ve all been intent on keeping quiet about it, Natasha knows that her aunt will tell her parents as soon as she suspects Natasha may have found something out.

Still, there’s one thing her aunt may be willing to keep a secret; and if not, Natasha won’t mind if her uncle hears about it.

“I still find it a little odd that Uncle Howard would ask me to look after Steve,” Natasha admits with a slight shake of her head, because yes, that _is_ still something that crosses her mind despite everything else she has going on. Or maybe even _because_ of all of it. “I know that he and Joseph are close and that’s a big part of why he asked me to reach out, but he’s always been a little overprotective of me, too. I guess I still find it strange that he’d want me around Steve when he knew there would be a lot of heat on him.”

Aunt Maria gives her a little grin that almost looks amused. “If anything, I think you might have been safest with Steve. His two friends are cops, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but Uncle Howard has never trusted cops,” Natasha points out.

“And yet he’s relieved that Steve’s friends have been there for Wanda ever since that drive-by,” her aunt says, and Natasha feels herself pause, surprised. “Joseph Rogers is someone very few would dare to threaten and he’s still missing,” Aunt Maria reminds gently. “Things are changing, darling. Your uncle just wants to keep you safe.”

Natasha holds her aunt’s stare, feeling her chest tighten ever so slightly. “Because I’m in danger?”

Aunt Maria hums, giving Natasha’s shoulder a squeeze. “Because he loves you,” she answers simply as she stands, turning away. And Natasha knows that, at least for now, that’s all her aunt is willing to share.

... ...

Steve is more than used to watching his sister flit around his kitchen, but seeing his best friend standing beside her, barely fighting off a smile as Wanda walks him through a recipe for vinaigrette dressing, is certainly a sight Steve couldn’t have anticipated a week ago. Before seeing it for himself, though, Steve knew that the two of them would’ve gotten close. He knows his sister, and he knows there’s no way Wanda would’ve let Bucky and Sam watch over her without wanting to form a genuine friendship with them.

Although, it’s starting to become clear that Bucky and Wanda are far more comfortable with each other than Steve first thought.

“You keep making faces like that and those lines will stay that way,” a voice teases, pulling a grin from his lips as he turns to look at Natasha perched on the barstool beside his. Her eyes are twinkling, her cheeks flushed from the almost empty glass of prosecco in her hand and her hair a little wild from being let out of the braid she’d had it in.

 _Beautiful_.

It was the first thought to cross his mind the moment he saw her, and it’s the same thought that’s lingered in his head ever since. Sometimes it still catches him off guard, just how stunning Natasha is. Yes, part of it is because she’s almost always put together, but even then, that doesn’t mean much. She was still every bit as beautiful when he saw her first thing in the morning after she’d spent the night, sweetly rumpled and a little disheveled in Wanda’s pajamas; just as she was every bit as beautiful when he bumped into her and Maria on their morning run, her hair wild and windblown and her skin flushed from the exertion. He knows Natasha puts on appearances in the same way they all need to most of the time, and Natasha can definitely be a lot harder to read when she wants to. Still, Steve knows that most of her beauty is because she’s effortlessly herself.

She laughs at her own jokes, and runs around with the kids during parties, and doesn’t give a damn about polishing off two cocktails before they’ve even ordered dinner.

He doesn’t think he’s seen every part of her just yet, but he’s pretty sure he’s seen most, just as he’s pretty sure he’s seen a hell of a lot more than she’s ever show someone who wasn’t her family.

He knows that when she lets him see every last part of her, he’ll be a goner. He’s more than halfway there, anyway.

“I’m not making faces,” he retorts, feeling his grin widen ever so slightly.

She arches an eyebrow, pressing her lips together and not quite trying to fight off a grin of her own. “Really?” Her voice is soft as she tips her wine glass to point at Bucky and Wanda, the two of them too distracted by each other to notice him and Nat. “So _that_ doesn’t make you uncomfortable? Your best friend and your little sister?”

“If anyone would be good enough for my little sister, it would be my best friend,” he retorts.

“He watches her very carefully.” Her green eyes are bright and glinting playfully, almost giddily. _Fucking beautiful_. Even in his own thoughts, he’s breathless. “I’m sure they spend a lot of quality time together.”

“Nat,” he says, though it’s nowhere near a warning.

“Everyone falls for their bodyguard.”

“ _Nat_.” He laughs as he shakes his head, something warm humming in his veins.

Natasha sits up straighter, taking a nonchalant sip of her wine, but the amusement just under her playfully composed expression gives her away. “Still not uncomfortable?”

He lets his eyes fall to her lips, and unlike every other time when he’d stolen a glance, he lets his gaze lingers. They part ever so slightly, and he can practically hear the soft, quick way she inhales. He _knows_ she’s holding her breath, just like him, even though nothing about her body so much as shifts an inch to give it away. “Not exactly the word I’d use,” he murmurs, his voice coming out rough, even to his own ears, and he lets his gaze slide back up to her eyes. He can practically count every one of her eyelashes.

And then the doorbell rings.

For a fleeting moment, he Steve a genuine look of annoyance tug at Natasha’s expression, and his grin turns wry as he slides off of the stool. “Got it,” he announces to Bucky and Wanda, his gaze lingering on Natasha as she takes a gulp of her wine. He nearly chuckles as he shakes his head, walking out of the kitchen.

He’d known that Wanda and Bucky invited Sam to dinner, so Steve isn’t surprised to see him.

He’s a little more surprised to see Maria, though.

“Fine,” Maria says, her voice sounding almost resigned even as genuine amusement flickers in her expression as Sam turns to smirk at her. “We should’ve recorded his face.”

Despite his confusion, Steve chuckles. “Good to see you, too, Hill.” Maria only hums in response, but her grin widens, her eyes bright and almost playful as she glances back at Sam—and, really, Steve shouldn’t expect any less at this point. He gestures between the two of them as he asks, “Did you need a bodyguard, too?”

“He asked, but he couldn’t afford me,” Maria quips dryly, stepping inside, and she gives Steve’s forearm a quick squeeze in greeting as she passes him.

Sam steps in, too, his gaze lingering on Maria as Steve shuts the front door before turning to him, his mouth hitched at one corner. “We bumped into each other when I was leaving a witness’s place,” he explains, and though Steve knows that the spark in his best friend’s eyes is certainly nothing new whenever he talks about Maria Hill—admiration only thinly-veiled with annoyance—the amused smirk on his lips is definitely a first. Steve has always known there more to the way Maria had gotten under Sam’s skin over the years, that it wasn’t just a detective annoyed by the thorough efforts of a private investigator and her uncanny knack for constantly crossing his path both on and off duty.

He never really anticipated that Sam would ever _act_ on it, though. Every cop in the city knows who the Families are, and Sam would’ve never risked a job he loved so much for a woman that came from the world the police is trying to shut down.

But that world is now Steve’s world, too, and that made a difference to Sam. That gave him a reason to look closer, or maybe it gave him a reason to finally make a move.

Steve knows the feeling.

His grin widens as he comes up next to Sam, patting his shoulder, and, because his best friend can read the amusement in Steve’s expression, Sam shakes his head. “It’s just dinner,” he says. Steve’s grin shifts into a smirk and Sam breathes out a chuckle. “Oh, it’s like that now?”

“It’s like that now,” Steve replies with a chuckle of his own, letting his hand drop as they both head into the kitchen.

Maria is sitting in the barstool beside Nat that he’d just occupied, a glass of wine already in hand, and Natasha glances over her shoulder as he and Sam join them at the kitchen island. He doesn’t know quite what compels him to come up right behind her, but he does, letting his hands find the curve of her hips, and she lets him pull her back just a little so that she’s resting against his chest. She’d refilled her own wine, too, and she takes a sip from it, glancing up at him as her tongue sweeps over her lower lip.

“Uncomfortable?” she mouths, and he gives her a gentle squeeze that makes her laugh softly against the rim of her glass.

“Where’s your other half?” Sam asks Wanda, and Steve catches the way his sister hesitates for less than a second, almost glances over her shoulder at Bucky.

“Working,” Wanda replies, angling a teasingly sly sort of smile at Sam, and there’s not an ounce of apprehension or wariness from Sam as he nods. Her eyes sparkle as she uses the wooden spoon that she’d been mixing the salad with to gesture between him and Maria, asking, “When did _this_ become a thing?”

Steve half-expects Maria to reply with a denial of some sort, but instead, she answers almost nonchalantly, “We’ve been teaming up on a few things.”

“Figured we’d have all our bases covered between the two of us, illegal or otherwise,” Sam adds, his expression turning a little wry at the corners. “We’re looking into who might’ve been following you the day of the drive-by,” he explains, and then, turning to Natasha, he adds, “and who’s been sending those pictures of you.”

Steve pauses, feeling Natasha sit up just a little straighter against his chest. “Pictures?” Steve asks, tilting his head to look at Nat. “What pictures?”

Something too quick to catch passes through Natasha’s expression as she looks up at him and it makes his chest tighten, _hard_.

Instead of Natasha, though, it’s Wanda who speaks up next, drawing everyone’s attention on her, and that pressure on Steve’s lungs seems to compound as he sees his sister’s entire body stiff with tension. “You got one, too?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper as Bucky cups a hand over the back of her neck, giving a comforting sort of squeeze as his thumb rubs over her pulse. Wanda eases, but only a little, and when Steve glances at Sam and Maria, neither of them looks as surprised as Steve feels.

“When did you get yours?” Maria questions.

Steve is seconds away from asking why the hell he seems to be the only one that doesn’t know what’s going on, but then Wanda is pulling her phone out of her apron pocket and swiping at the screen before setting it faced up on the island and sliding it over. A picture of Natasha is on the screen, sent from a blocked number last night.

It’s taken from a distance and at an angle, and it’s pretty damn obvious that Natasha wasn’t aware of a camera being pointed at her.

That low, warm hum in his veins has turned to a frantic sort of buzz, and he can his every muscle going taut. “What is this?” he asks, so low that he half-wonders if anyone other than Natasha had been able to hear him, and something akin to guilt flickers in Natasha’s eyes.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

He flexes his fingers at her hips because he’s dangerously close to squeezing too tight. He doesn’t think he’s capable of feeling any more tense than he already is, but then Maria says, “Someone has been watching Nat for the last few days and I’m almost certain it has something to do with the ‘Sarah Rogers’ from the coffeehouse.”

The complete surprise he feels is mirrored in Natasha’s expression as she nearly slams the wine glass down, head snapping around to stare at Maria. It’s clear that the latter had been news to her, too, and she almost starts to ask a question when Steve yanks his hands from her hips. She whirls back around to face him, and the fleeting look of _hurt_ that flashes in her eyes is what stops him from taking a step back from her. She’s upset and it kills him, but at the same time, he’s _pissed_. He knows Natasha can be a bit secretive, and he knows she’s used to doing things on her own most of the time. He’s not pissed that she might have needed a day or two to process whatever the hell this is.

But Maria said it’d been _days_ , and she’d clearly been in on it, too. Even if Natasha didn’t know Maria hadn’t also involved Sam, she still kept it from Steve.

He’s seen her every day for almost a week and she never told him any of this. Not even a hint.

And if that in itself wasn’t enough of a reason to be pissed, there’s also the fact that Maria is tossing _his mother’s_ name into the same conversation as someone who’s been watching Natasha.

He stares down at her, fingers twitching at his sides. Oddly enough, he hands to touch her again, wants his hands back on her hips and wants her pulled right against his chest. And no, he’s not so pissed at her as he is at the situation at hand. Someone is _following her_ and she didn’t tell him.

She doesn’t need his protection, but she also knows that he’d give it to her without question or hesitation. She already has it, has _him_ , in the palm of her hand.

“I wanted to be certain first,” Natasha tells him, facing him completely, and even though everyone else is only a foot or two away from them, all he sees is Natasha.

“Sounds like this is the first you’re hearing Maria’s theory, so try again,” he counters.

She narrows her eyes ever so slightly. “Don’t be patronizing,” Natasha warns, the first flickers of her own anger simmering in her expression at his tone. “I wasn’t going to throw around your mother’s name over something that could have very well been a coincidence.”

“You don’t believe in coincidences,” he argues, hands sliding over her hips again, rubbing his thumbs into her skin as if attempting to ease the climbing tension in her body even though he’s the damn reason for it, just as she’s the reason for his. He feels as if he’s trembling, he’s so pissed. But she doesn’t flinch away from his touch, not once.

“I was being careful,” Natasha insists. “I noticed the name on a receipt by pure chance, and we only just found something that could be a lead. I was handling it first.”

“Like you’re handling your mother?” Steve fires back, and he watches her inhale sharply. He _hates_ that he’s the reason for it, but he has to know. “Would you have told me about that if you’d found out on your own, just because my dad is missing? You’d still risk being around your mother, knowing she was lying, without telling me anything?”

Her voice trembles ever so slightly. “She’s my mother.”

“ _Exactly_.” His gives her another gentle squeeze. “It would’ve surprised me, and yeah, it probably would’ve upset me. But I’d want to know, no matter what. Even if it was the most illogical, inconceivable fucking theory ever, I would’ve wanted to know. I would’ve trusted you and what you had to say about it, even if you thought you were wrong.”

Natasha swallows lightly, lips parting, but the chime of phone cuts off whatever she’d been about to say, the sound almost jarring in the tense quiet of the kitchen.

Steve almost considers not looking at all, but his eyes flit over to Wanda’s phone on the counter, still close enough to read the text message from Clint—and, when his entire body goes stiff and cold, he’s vaguely aware of Natasha reaching up to touch his cheek as he reads the words over and over and _over_ again in his head.

_Ambushed. Pietro got hit. Get here now._

... ...

Ironically enough, Natasha has never spent much time in hospitals. No one in the Family does, or they try their damn hardest not to.

She goes a few times a year for check-ins here or there, just like anyone else would, but anything serious – anything that could lead to too many questions and to the cops possibly being tipped off – are handled discreetly. The Families have their own doctors that they pay a pretty penny to make sure they make themselves available as needed, and the Families provided all the equipment and supplies they’d need, too—so the fact that Pietro was rushed straight to the ER means that it looked serious enough that Clint wasn’t taking any chances or wasting any time. The silver lining is that, because the Families are so infamous in this city, the staff didn’t hesitate to make Pietro their priority.

The hospital also ushered them into a separate corner of the ER to wait, and though it isn’t exactly a private room, it’s as close as they can get. Natasha doubts it would’ve bothered Steve at all if they had to wait with everyone else, and it’s probably for the hospital’s benefit, too, to keep them being here as quiet as possible. Still, Steve manages a small smile to the nurse that offers the space to them and thanks her after she promises to personally check in with them every half hour and give them updates on Pietro.

“He took a shot aimed at me,” Clint had explained when they first got to the ER. “One of our guys was just a second too late with disarming him.”

Clint hasn’t said a word since, other than when he’d stepped aside to take a quick phone call from Laura, but Natasha hadn’t anticipated any differently. The noises of the hospital filter in, but otherwise, the only thing to fill the quiet of the room is Wanda’s occasional whimper or shuddering inhale. She hadn’t even wanted to sit down at first, but at the first sway in her steps, Bucky had pulled her onto his lap and kept a gentle but firm grip on her when she tried to stand back up, and her resolve crumbled in seconds.

Steve, however, has yet to sit down. He’s stayed standing right next to Natasha’s chair in the corner, his body taut, though not in the same way it’d been when they were arguing in his kitchen just hours ago. Then, she could feel the frustration just under skin, threatening to burst.

Now, though, he’s almost entirely still, his body facing the door and his arms crossed over his chest as he leans one shoulder against the wall. She’d only attempted to get him to sit once with a gentle tug on his forearm, but when he’d given her the ghosts of a smile and the barest shake of his head, she knew to let him be. He wants to be alert, and with his gaze always aimed toward the door, he’d been in front of the nurse within seconds of her walking into the room in the handful of times she’s checked with them so far.

He almost does so right now, though this time, it’s Maria that steps into the room. She and Sam had stayed to clean up the kitchen while the rest of them went to the ER, and after that, she’d texted Nat to let her know that the two of them were heading to the scene so Sam could talk to the officers that responded to the shooting. The only other thing that Sam learned was that an Asgard car was seen nearby, driving away as the officers headed there, though it couldn’t be determined just yet if that was a coincidence.

It’s almost ridiculous to consider that idea, but that conversation can wait for now.

Natasha stands as Steve leans off of the wall, his hand curving over her hip and drawing her close, and, despite everything, Natasha almost smiles. Their argument from earlier is far from being resolved and they both know it, yet he doesn’t hesitate to seek her presence, to need her comfort.

“We’ve got every eye in the city squeezing out the shooters, and Sam’s got every cop in Manhattan on the lookout, too,” Maria informs as she comes to stand beside them. She glances at Wanda, her expression softening as she adds, “and the Families are on their way,” and Wanda nods once, turning to press her face into Bucky’s shoulder as she burrows herself against him as close as physically possible. Bucky wraps his arms around her again, tucking her head under his chin as he murmurs something into her hair.

Wanda has always been far softer than the rest of them, but she’s still her father’s daughter. She was still born and raised in the Family, and just because she always has a sweet smile on her lips doesn’t make her any weaker or less dangerous. Honestly, Natasha is pretty damn sure she’s the strongest of them all.

Seeing her _this_ shaken up is more than just unsettling, and the fact that the Families are getting together to be here for Pietro is no small thing, either.

Steve nods once, pulling his phone from his pocket to check the screen. “Seems like they’re already starting to arrive,” he says, showing a text from Nick, and he gives Natasha’s hip a gentle squeeze. “I’ll meet them outside. I should get some air, anyway.”

Natasha peers up at him. “Do you want some company?”

He gives her the softest sort of smile. “Yes,” he admits quietly, but he’s also shaking his head, leaning in to whisper, “but can you stay here?” His eyes flicker to Wanda for a moment, his careful, collected expression cracking at the edges, and Natasha knows what he’s really asking. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Bucky or Clint or even Maria to be there for his sister, but if he has to leave her side, even if only for a few minutes, he’d prefer Natasha stay behind in his place, to know to comfort Wanda the way he would.

“Of course,” she tells him, and she feels his lips curve against her skin, his smile growing just a fraction as he brushes a kiss to her cheek.

Then he steps away, giving Maria’s arm a gentle squeeze as he passes her, and Maria watches him go for a moment before turning back to Natasha. “I didn’t think Sam would mention something right away,” she tells her. It’s not an apology, necessarily, but that’s because she knows Natasha wouldn’t want one from her. She doesn’t blame Maria for her fight with Steve, nor does she blame Steve or herself, really. It’d been unfortunate for him to find out something so serious the way he had, especially since she knew that it would be worse to hide it at all. She hadn’t meant to wait for so long, and Steve he didn’t bring up her mother simply because he was pissed and trying to get back at her.

“I know,” Natasha says simply, her mouth hitching at the corner, and Maria gives her a small smile in return. “I didn’t mean to put you in that position to begin with.”

Maria’s smile widens just a little, and for a moment, Natasha thinks she might have some witty retort, maybe even a teasing line. But, when the moment passes, her expression fades altogether as she presses her lips into a tight line.

And, because Natasha knows her best friend, she knows what that carefully composed look means. “You found something out,” Natasha says.

Maria nods. “My father found out that I was looking into Sarah Rogers, but when he approached me about it, he’d already assumed it was Steve’s mother that I was looking into. He thought that I was just looking into Joseph again, like he’d asked me and Carol to do when he first went missing, and Dad said—” She stops herself, and, maybe for the first time that Natasha can remember, Maria looks hesitant, but she continues on. “He’d told me that when Joseph Rogers moved to the States, he’d scrubbed his past.”

Natasha feels her entire body stiffen, feels her breath hitch in her chest. At the corner of her gaze, she watches Wanda sit up, her cheeks still wet with tears as she furrows her at Maria in question.

“Scrubbed?” Natasha echoes. “When was this?”

“He was thirteen when he moved here, and he was adopted, but there are no records of that, either.” The surprise clear as day in Maria’s voice as she turns to Wanda. The girl looks just as stunned as the both of them, glancing between her and Natasha as the hand that’s holding onto Bucky’s shirt tightens. It’s clear that this is news to her, too.

_Thirteen._

Natasha’s mind flickering back to the photograph of her mother and Joseph Rogers, the two of them clearly young. As soon as she’d seen them, she thought they would’ve barely been in high school, if even that.

Joseph Rogers had been adopted. He’d _moved_ to the United States, and he’d known her mother before that happened. No one mentioned anything about Joseph being with her Uncle Howard and her father on that year-long trip across Europe, but Uncle Howard has known Joseph Rogers since high school. He had to have known Joseph Rogers wasn’t born into the most notorious Family in New York. In fact, _every_ Family had to have known about his adoption the moment Joseph Rogers had come into the picture.

“There’s something else,” Maria adds, and the tone of her voice makes Natasha’s chest tighten as she glances at Wanda.

... ...

He was lucky, the doctor told them. If Pietro had been a second slower, he might not have even made it to the hospital in time. Those words alone had been enough to make Steve feel pretty damn lightheaded, but the fact that his brother is fine, that he’s expected to make a full recovery, keeps Steve from swaying on his feet.

Wanda’s eyelashes flutter shut as she exhales slowly, leaning into Steve’s chest as a shiver rolls down her spine, and Steve tucks her in close as he brushes a kiss to her hair. He catches Natasha’s gaze over Wanda’s head, his fingers twitching to pull her in, too, but they both know that he won’t. Not right now, when they haven’t even talked about what this is, and especially not with the rest of the Family in the same room. He doesn’t think she’d push him away, but he doesn’t want anyone asking questions right now.

He’s got enough to deal with as it is.

And he’s glad that Howard, Nick, and Odin are standing with him to actually catch whatever the hell the doctor is saying about the operation itself, because Steve can barely catch his breath, let alone understand more than a few words at a time. But that’s _why_ they’re there, why everyone in the Family has been here the entire time that Pietro’s been in surgery, to let Steve and Wanda deal with coping while they take care of everything else. That’s one thing about the Families that still surprised Steve from time to time—just how much of a _family_ they truly are. Steve hasn’t spoken with Odin nearly as often as he has with Howard and Nick, but he’d still come with Frigga and everyone else in tow, and even if it’s just to save face with Howard and Nick, Steve appreciates it nonetheless. Almost half of the men searching the streets right now answer to him.

And even though his sister clearly has an issue with Steve, and his brother isn’t nearly as welcoming, Steve isn’t all that surprised that Thor and his wife, Sif, have been hovering nearby all night long. Like with Odin, Steve has only spoken with Thor a handful of times, but the man is hard not to like. He seems to take after Frigga more than Odin, and he’d gotten a smile out of Wanda and eased some of the weight pressing on Steve’s chest for a short while without completely disregarding the mood altogether.

Steve glances across the room, his gaze falling on where Hela has been sitting the whole night.

She’d kept to herself, barely glancing in Steve’s direction when their family first arrived, and she’d hung back with Loki when Odin, Frigga, Thor, and Sif had come to talk to Steve and Wanda. He supposes that’s as close to civil as she was going to offer considering she hasn’t made her contempt with Steve a secret. She doesn’t strike him as the type to only talk behind one’s back, either, so Steve doesn’t doubt that Hela is under strict orders from Odin and Frigga to keep quiet if she can’t find anything tame to say.

Still, Steve’s thoughts drift back to the text Natasha had gotten from Sam and Maria a few hours ago, about an Asgard car being near the scene.

Even if Hela had wanted to make a move against Steve, using Wanda and Pietro to do so would’ve been a stretch, even for her. Maybe she thinks they should head the Families instead, especially with Steve in his father’s shoes for the time being, but Hela wouldn’t have much to gain from that kind of move. The Families each have their boroughs that they run, and even though they don’t draw the lines on a map, Steve knows the control is fairly evenly split. Steve learned fairly early on that his father’s supposed title of running the Families is mostly just that – some kind of title. He made the decisions, but nothing was ever decided without consulting the other families.

Steve can’t see it being worth it to Hela to get to him through Wanda and Pietro, not when there would be hell for her to answer to from the rest of the Family. Orchestrating raids on their shipments and deliveries doesn’t make much more sense, either, when she directly benefits from those profits.

Still, he can’t exactly shake the feeling that she’s involved somehow. It just may not be as obvious as it seems.

“You alright?” Natasha asks, standing close enough and keeping her voice low enough for only him to hear, even with Wanda, Clint, and Howard just a few steps away.

He hums, catching her arm in his hand, just above the elbow, and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Walk with me?” he asks, and she nods.

Steve steps forward, waiting until Wanda notices him a few seconds later as to not interrupt Clint and Howard. “I’m going to grab some air before they show us to Pietro’s room,” he tells her, and Wanda nods, offering a small smile. He knows she isn’t exactly in a rush. She’d put up a fight at first when both Howard and Nick insisted that she and Steve go home to rest after they’ve sat with Pietro for a short while, but he knows she’s exhausted, and she conceded when Clint reminded her that the Family would be with Pietro all night and would call if anything urgent comes up. Pietro will likely be asleep until morning, anyway, and the doctors seem confident that he’ll make a quick recovery.

Natasha lets him take her hand as they turn the corner into the hallway, threading their fingers and lifting her hand up to brush a kiss to her knuckles.

They don’t step outside of the hospital – there are more men keeping watch, but it’s still risky, especially this late at night – but he walks them down a few hallways until they’re mostly alone and don’t seem to be in anyone’s way.

He leans back against the wall, sliding his hands over her hips and tugging her close, and he only catches a glimpse of the smirk tugging at her lips before he slants his mouth over hers. He tells himself it’ll just be a gentle, comforting brush – something selfish but quick – but he knows he’s not fooling anyone, especially not himself.

Natasha doesn’t flinch or stiffen in response, not even for half a second. Instead, she makes the softest sort of sound as she parts her lips, and within seconds, the kiss is deeper and it’s harder and it’s just _more_. He pulls her tightly against his chest as her hands slide up between them, draping around his neck, and he feels both exhilarated and exhausted all at once. Their argument in his kitchen felt like days ago, and sitting next to her on the barstool, drinking wine and flirting, felt like it’d happened weeks before.

Slowly, eventually, the frantic hum in his body ebbs into something softer, his mouth easing against Nat’s until she pulls back, just a little, reaching up to touch his jaw.

“I’m sorry for reacting the way I did,” he murmurs against the corner of her lips. “I trust your judgment, Nat. You were just being mindful of me.”

“I’m sorry I waited too long to tell you myself, because I was going to. I wanted you to hear all of it from me.” She pulls back a little more, just enough to really look into his eyes, and even though he knows she can probably read his every though, he still nods at her in encouragement and in reassurance. Because he believes her. He knows she’d been planning to tell him and she was just waiting for the right time, when she had enough of a reason for it to make sense to herself before she got him involved on it, too.

He doesn’t know if he would’ve taken it better or worse if she’d told him right away, when it was just a nagging thought that she decided to follow up on. He’d like to think that he would’ve handled it well enough, but then again, bringing his mother up to any extent even after all these years is still a little hard for him.

He doubts he would’ve had any rational reaction to hearing it in _this_ context, in a theory that someone with the same name as his mother was stalking Natasha.

Steve exhales, dropping his forehead to hers. “We don’t have to talk about it now,” he promises softly, turning his head to press a kiss to her temple. “I can barely keep myself upright, but I just wanted us to at least talk about _this_ , and I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy to do it once we got home. I don’t like you thinking I don’t trust you.”

He hears the smile in her soft laugh. “I know you trust me,” she promises. “I don’t think I could even attempt to explain it right now, so it’s better if we get back to it later.”

He nods once, pulling her in close again as he lets his head fall into the curve of her shoulder. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been gone, but he doesn’t want to go back just yet and Natasha seems to share the sentiment as her body melts against his, her lips brushing against the pulse in his throat.

... ...

Bucky is the one to drive the four of them back to Steve’s from the hospital, and, considering it’s just after one in the morning by the time they step into the brownstone, it’s a given that he’ll be spending the night just as Nat is. Wanda lends her another set of pajamas to borrow, and Natasha thinks the girl is attempting to make a joke at first when she asks Natasha if she’ll be sharing a bed with her or Steve—but then Steve gives her this little smile when she looks at him and Natasha feels something warm start to unfurl in her chest. He tells her that it’s her choice, and that Bucky can take the couch if she doesn’t want to share a bed at all, but Natasha doesn’t even have to pause to consider.

Wanda lends her another set of pajamas to sleep in and Natasha gives her a hug goodnight, and then watches as Wanda walks up to Bucky to give him a hug, too, lingering a beat longer before giving him a small smile and then stepping into her room with Steve.

Natasha’s eyes flit to Bucky when the girl’s door clicks closed, and he exhales, “Don’t even start,” before she can even draw a breath.

His lips are twitching as if fighting off a smile of his own, though, so Natasha is willing to bet he isn’t nearly as uncomfortable with it her teasing as he acts.

Natasha breathes out a laugh. “I think it’s cute,” she says. Bucky sort of squints at her as if trying to determine if she’s teasing about that, too—and yeah, maybe she was. But then she catches the flicker in his eyes as he genuinely studies her, and she knows that he’s looking for _something_ , though maybe he doesn’t even realize it for himself.

_If anyone would be good enough for my little sister, it would be my best friend._

Natasha feels herself smile as she remembers how easily Steve said those words. She doesn’t necessarily think Bucky is looking for validation in this moment; she doubts he would’ve ever made a move on Wanda if he thought it would genuinely upset Steve, or if he thought he wasn’t enough for her.

Still, she lets the amusement in her smile fade at the edges as she peers back at him. “You were exactly what she needed tonight,” she tells him, her voice soft. If he’s surprised by the sentiment from her, though, he does a pretty damn good job of not letting on as he nods, a grin tugging at his lips. “Good night, _Buck_.”

Bucky’s chuckles follow her as she slips into Steve’s room, and she heads straight into the hallway bathroom to change.

She doesn’t realize just how damn exhausted she is until she has the door shut behind her. The nerves of waiting while Pietro was in surgery had kept the fatigue at bay back at the hospital, and though a little of it crept back in when she and Steve were alone in that hallway, she’d caught somewhat of a second wind when they walked back to wrap up with Uncle Howard and check on a sleeping Pietro in his private room. She doesn’t know how long Steve plans on talking with Wanda – probably not long at all since the two of them are likely wrung out by now – so Natasha is quick to change and wash up, just in case Steve plans on waiting on her before he turns the light off and passes out.

In fact, she’s doesn’t doubt that’s what he’d do.

The door to his bedroom is open partway, giving her a glimpse of Steve as he walks out of his bathroom, so Natasha switches off the hallway light behind her before slipping inside. He pauses in the middle of setting the throw pillows aside when he hears her, looking over his shoulder, and she lets her gaze trace over his body. She’d never felt as if he was reserved with her before, but it seems that, after their kiss, whatever little semblance of polite restraint that’d been between them had dissolved. Rather than a mild glance, she takes her time to look at him, her eyes sliding across his broad shoulders straining against his white tee, over his sculpted biceps and down to the cinch of his hips.

When she brings her eyes back up to his, she finds a small grin on his lips, one eyebrow arched. She nearly has to bite back a smirk.

“I’m disappointed.” She tilts her head as she walks over to him. “When you said you usually get warm at night, I was hoping that meant you went to bed shirtless.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I usually do.”

She raises her eyebrows, this time letting her smirk tug at her lips. “Well, don’t stop on my account.”

She’s only half-teasing, and she knows he can hear it in her voice because he pauses, just for a second, as his eyes flits down to her lips, his gaze shifting into something a little darker and a little stormier. He reaches for the hem of his shirt, catching her gaze once more as he cocks his head ever so slightly in question—and though there’s a quip on the tip of her tongue, she doesn’t really want to make light of this moment between them. She doesn’t want, not even for a second, for this to feel any _less_ of what it is.

They’ve both waited too damn long for this.

She grasps at his shirt, pushing the material up his body, and he helps her pull it over his head before letting it fall to the floor. She holds his stare as she places her palms flat against his chest, and when he reaches up, gently grasping at her wrists, she knows he won’t pull her, nor is he afraid that she may suddenly change her mind.

He simply wants to touch her, and so he does, stroking the pads of his thumbs ever so slightly across her skin as another small grin pulls at his lips. “You can tell me if this is too much, too fast, Nat,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper as he leans in closer.

“Considering this should have happened _weeks_ ago, it’s not _fast enough_.” She narrows her eyes at him, her smirk widening. “If you don’t kiss me, Steve—”

He’s laughing as his mouth slants over hers, and Natasha feels that same flutter of warmth in her chest as she had when he’d kissed her at the hospital.

He pulls her arms around his neck, guiding her back until he’s wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her onto the bed, deepening their kiss as he lowers her against the mattress. His teeth graze against her lower lip right before he nips it, making her mouth part a little more against his as his tongue sweeps inside. It only takes seconds for his gentle yet firm kiss to shift, growing just a little bit rougher, just a little bit harder, as one of his hands comes up to cup her jaw. She can feel the slight tremble of his thumb across her skin, turning into a shiver that rolls down his spine as he presses them together, and she knows that every ounce of emotion from the day—hell, from just the last few _hours_ —is crashing back over him, rushing through his veins. He’d done a good job at tamping down all of his anxieties at the hospital, but now they’re finally bursting free.

She knows he won’t want to just forget everything that happened today, and it’s not that he really wants a distraction, either. He just needs something to do with all of the raw emotion humming restlessly through his body, and she knows one thing that might work.

Her hands slide out from around his neck and slip between them, gently dragging her nails down the contours of his chest until she grasps at the waistband of his sweats.

But then he’s grasping at one of her hands to stop her, parting their kiss and lifting his head just enough to peer into her eyes. “Let me help,” she whispers.

He ducks his head, kissing her throat, nipping at the pulse in her neck, and she exhales a sigh as she arches up against him. “You _are_ helping,” he insists, his voice soft but sincere as his lips brush across her collarbone, dips between her breasts just above the dip of her tank top. He grasps at the hem, pushing it up to bare her stomach, and she threads her fingers through his hair as he places a kiss just above one of her ribs. He hooks his thumbs under the waistband of her shorts, pausing. “You can tell me to stop.”

Her eyelashes flutter closed as she smiles like an idiot up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know how he keeps surprising her, but she likes it a little too much.

“Is this for you, too?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer. He’d said it just seconds ago, even if not in the exact words, and she absolutely believes that Steve would want to focus on _her_ pleasure alone as a way to channel all of the excess energy radiating off of his skin.

Still, her stomach does a little flip when he hums his reassurances against her hipbone, nipping her skin there, and she lifts her hips off of the bed so he can slide her panties and her pajama shorts off. He presses his thighs apart, his eyes flickering up along the length of her body to catch her gaze right before his tongue sweeps against her.

 _Oh_.

She sucks in a breath, spine arching just a little bit off of the bed, and he pulls one of her knees over his shoulder as he opens her up a little wider, glides his tongue against her a little harder. She’d already been damp from the few minutes they’d been kissing, and it doesn’t take long for her to grow wetter, her skin flushing all over as he takes his time tasting her. He licks through the slick folds of her sex, finding her little bundle of nerves and sucking on it lightly, too lightly, and she lets her head roll to the side as she exhales heavily. He’s driving her _crazy_ , leaning every inch of her, teasing at her entrance until she’s twisting her fingers into his duvet and rolling her hips against his mouth.

Then his tongue slips inside, curling, and she lets out a soft moan as her hips buck ever so slightly against him. She swears she feels him grin.

Slowly, _oh so slowly_ , he sweeps his tongue inside of her, then up through her folds, flicking at her tight bud before dipping back down, repeating the cycle and yet somehow teasing her enough with sudden quick sucks or lingering licks so that she can’t fall into his rhythm.

She feels ready to burst, her body lightly slicked with sweat and her breaths coming in shaky and haltingly. It almost feels as if the more she squirms under his tongue, the longer he draws it out. Her hands find his hair again, twisting into it and all but holding him in place, hips jerking as she chases the climbing pressure low in her stomach—

Then he catches her clit between his lips, sucking it into his mouth and letting his tongue dart out against it, and she bows off of the bed as she finally, _finally_ hits the edge.

One of his hands digs into the flesh of her ass, holding her to him as she rides out the waves of her high. He groans against her, sounding every bit as delicious tortured as she feels, and, _god_ , that makes her come just a little bit harder, hearing how much pleasure he gets out of _her_ pleasure.

She feels the tease of his fingers a second before he slips two inside of her with ease, curling, his tongue still working over her tight bundle of nerves, and this time her moan is a little louder when it spills from her lips.

Her second orgasm comes right on the heels of her first, harder and headier, and _longer_ , the thrust of his fingers dragging out every ounce of pleasure from her as he can. She doesn’t know if she should feel embarrassed by how easily she falls apart for him or impressed by how quickly he reads her, but as the white-hot waves burst through her, she can’t find it in herself to care about either. Especially not when Steve’s body is moving over her again, his hand wrapping around his hard length as he dips down to kiss her.

He groans into her mouth, letting her taste her sweet musk on his tongue as she shivers under the ripples of her orgasm, and, very faintly through the thrum of the blood rushing through her, she can hear the wet slide of him working his hand over himself, chasing his own high.

“ _Nat_ ,” he breathes into their kiss, and even through the haze of pleasure smothering her, she knows what words he can’t quite find, knows what he’s really asking.

She nods, almost frantic, reaching up with trembling hands to cup his face. She can’t quite find her words, either, so she just kisses him even harder instead.

He groans again, his body shuddering as he rushes over that edge, too, and she feels the warmth of his release start to wet her stomach. She nearly shivers, biting down on his lower lip and then licking at the indent of her teeth, and she doesn’t even care that their kiss has grown messy as he rides out his high.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

She parts their lips as her lungs start to burn for air and his head falls forward into the curve of her neck. She really, _really_ shouldn’t be smiling like an idiot right now, but she couldn’t care less his body shivers through the last tremors of his orgasm.

He kisses the thrumming pulse in her neck once, twice, three times, and then lifts his head enough to stare down at her face. His hand is wet with his release when he touches her, but then again, so is she. He licks his lips before they hitch into a boyish sort of grin, and her stomach flips as she returns it with a small grin of her own.

If she thought she’d been exhausted before, she’s very nearly about to pass out now as Steve slides off of her and heads into his bathroom. Even then, though, this kind of fatigue feels warmer and lighter, and she can see it in his face, too, when Steve returns with a handful of tissue and damp washcloth. The heaviness that’d been in his eyes is no longer there as he methodically works to wipe her off with the tissues, disposing them into a small waste bin by his nightstand before running the washcloth over her skin.

When he heads back into the bathroom and returns a second time, he pulls the duvet back for them to climb under and then switches off the light. He reaches for her in the same second that she slides closer, and she smiles against his skin when he presses a kiss to the top of her head.

She knows she must’ve fallen asleep in the very next second, but she still hears his murmured, “thank you,” into her hair as she drifts off.

... ...

Steve has never been a deep sleeper, which is likely the reason he’s almost always up before dawn. But he knows before he’s even entirely awake that he’d gotten more rest last night than he has in a long while.

He also knows before he’s even opened his eyes that Natasha isn’t in the bed with him. He doesn’t feel the gentle press of her body against his or her hair falling across his shoulder, but he can still catch her scent clinging to the fabric of his sheets, something soft and sweet and just a little bit spiced, too. He can hear her, though. It’s faint and muffled and honestly something he thinks he could be imagining at first, considering he’s only really half-awake. But her laugh lilts through the air, mingling with Wanda’s giggles as it floats into his room. The sound makes a smile tug at his lips as he blinks his eyes open, squinting against the early morning light filtering in from the windows.

He can’t remember the last time he slept in until sunrise.

Another giggle floats through the air, a little louder this time, and, now that he’s almost entirely awake now, Steve can hear someone moving around in the kitchen. Probably Bucky. He knows the guy has to be at the precinct soon, and Wanda will want to leave early as well so they can get back to the hospital. Honestly, he’s surprised that his sister didn’t come straight into his room to wake him as soon as she was up herself, but it seems that she’s content and distracted enough by Nat to give him a few more minutes.

He finds the door wide open when he steps into the hallway, the two of them perched on the bed and huddled close together, and Steve’s gaze catches on Natasha. She put her panties and her pajama shorts back on, of course, but just the sight of them pulls him back to last night and to the look in her eyes when he’d peeled them off of her and tossed them to the floor. Part of him had wondered as he drifted to sleep if it would feel _different_ in the morning. If he’d wake up and realized they maybe should’ve waited.

But he doesn’t think that, not even for a second.

Because Natasha had been right about the fact that they’ve been dancing around this, _them_ , for weeks. Just because they’d fallen into bed together only hours after he’d kissed her for the first time doesn’t mean they’d rushed through anything.

And just because he hadn’t been inside her doesn’t mean he didn’t _want_ to be. But they’d both been exhausted – mentally, physically, and for damn sure emotionally – and he’s glad he’d waited. He won’t be forgetting last night anytime soon, but when they finally sleep together, he doesn’t want an ounce of fatigue clouding his memory.

Wanda catches sight of him in the doorway, her smile brightening, and Natasha follows her gaze onto him. “Good morning,” she greets, a small smirk pulling at her lips.

“Good morning.” He bites back a smirk of his own, shifting his gaze onto Wanda to find her eyes practically sparkling. “Sleep well?”

“Not as well as you, it seems,” Wanda replies, wrinkling her nose at him. He nearly shakes his head, but then she’s sliding off the bed and onto her feet and coming over to him, wrapping her arms around him with a squeeze, and, yeah. He can wait until later find out what the two of them were giggling about.

“You okay?” he whispers, and she presses her face into his chest, humming. Steve glances at Nat, her smile softening as she nods. “Come on. Let’s go make breakfast.”

Wanda unwinds her arms from around him, letting him brush a kiss to her temple before stepping into the hallway, and then Natasha is stepping passed him, too, glancing over her shoulder to shoot him a grin. He reaches forward and gently grasps her arm, pulling her until her back is pressed against his chest, and he ducks his head to press a kiss to the skin right next to her ear. Her grin widens as she exhales a light chuckle. “Well, you’re awfully chipper for someone who had quite the stressful night,” she muses.

He chuckles, too, giving her arm a slight squeeze. “Not all of it was stressful,” he points out, releasing her arm, and she tips her head back so he can brush a kiss to her lips.

He keeps it quick, only lingering for a beat before drawing back, but it’s still enough for a warmth to unfurl in his chest, making his blood hum softly. Natasha’s eyes are glinting as she turns away from him, and he grins as he follows her down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Wanda is already perched on one of the barstools at the kitchen island, spooning some sugar into her mug, and Bucky is drinking his own as he stands beside her. Steve is willing to bet that the guy’s burning his mouth right now as he gulps down his mug, but he’s already cutting it close to when he should be at the precinct.

“You guys going to be at the hospital all day?” Bucky asks as Steve opens a cabinet and pulls down two more mugs.

“Yeah, probably,” he replies. “We may run out once or twice in between, but we’ll be there as long as we can. I doubt they’ll be discharging him today, anyway.”

Howard had text him sometime last night to let him know that Pietro woke up twice and seemed coherent as he talked to the doctor, but he’s been asleep ever since, still lethargic from the surgery. There was another text from Nick, too, telling him that they hadn’t caught who else had been at the shooting, and honestly, Steve didn’t think they would. It’s clear the ambush was planned, like every other ambush the Families have dealt these last few weeks, so it isn’t surprising that they covered their tracks well.

Bucky nods. “Let me know,” he says, and Steve knows that he’s already planning on meeting them at the hospital after his shift, or he’ll meet them back here instead if they’ve already left. Bucky pulls his phone out of his pocket to check the time, muttering under his breath before draining the last of his coffee. “I should get going,” he tells them, loading his mug into the dishwasher, and then he’s heading back over to Wanda, pausing just a second to flash her a small grin, and then dipping down to kiss her.

Her eyelashes flutter in surprise, but he pulls back before she can so much as blink, turning to Steve and only barely fighting back a wider grin. “See you later, punk.”

“Pretty sure you’re the punk in this moment,” Steve replies dryly.

His best friend knows that he’s joking, though, so Bucky just chuckles and shoots Nat a grin on his way out.

Wanda’s cheeks are a little flushed as she cradles her mug with both hands, taking a sip of her coffee and catching his gaze over the rim, and there’s something hesitant in her gaze that makes him pause. He knows she’s not necessarily embarrassed by that kiss, even if he’d been there to see, but he can tell _something_ about it is bothering her.

Natasha can see it, too, because she slips onto the barstool beside Wanda’s and brushes her hair behind her ear. “Everything okay?”

Wanda rubs her lips together, giving her a wry sort of smile. “I just don’t want to get too attached,” she admits, her voice soft as she peers down into her coffee. Steve furrows his eyebrows, sharing a confused glance with Natasha, but Wanda continues before they can ask why. “It’s one thing for us to be close because I’m his best friend’s little sister, and maybe it’s okay if we just stay friends. But it’s another thing for him to be involved with me,” she points out, lifting her head and shrugging one shoulder.

“Because he’s a cop and you’re a mafia princess?” he guesses. She nods and he walks over to her, sitting on the other barstool beside her. “Quite the _Romeo and Juliet_ setup.”

Wanda breathes out a laugh as she rolls her eyes. “ _Please_ don’t use that as an example of a love story. It’s a poetic tragedy at best.”

Despite everything, Steve chuckles. “I wasn’t going to, because this isn’t a tragedy,” he promises, and the wry amusement fades from his sister’s expression as she gives him a long look. He cups the back of her head as he kisses her temple. “If that’s the only thing you’re worried about then you two will be fine. Buck won’t let that get in the way.”

“He shouldn’t have to risk his job, either,” Wanda argues. “I know it’s an issue for him and Sam to be so close to us. Maybe not you since you knew them from before, but—”

“Wanda,” Steve interrupts gently, giving her a small smile. “Bucky is one of the best detectives in the state. His job isn’t in any more danger than it was before, and he hasn’t even gotten a word of caution from his higher ups, which he would’ve if he was being scrutinized because he’s good friends with his captain. Trust me, and trust him, too.”

His sister nods, but the hesitation doesn’t quite leave her eyes. “I don’t want him to always be scrutinized by the Family, either.”

“You’d be surprised,” Natasha says, and Wanda turns to her, furrowing her eyebrows. “Uncle Howard is relieved that you’ve had Bucky with you all this time.” Wanda blinks and Natasha offers her a grin and a shrug of her shoulders. “Trust me, I was surprised when Aunt Maria told me this, too. But things are changing,” she reminds, glancing at Steve for a moment. “They came around to your brother. They’ll come around to Bucky and Sam, too. Not all of them, but the ones that care about _you_ will. Just give it time.”

Wanda smiles a little, the tension ebbing from her shoulders as she nods. “Okay,” she promises, resting her head against Steve’s shoulder. He glances over her to catch Natasha’s gaze again, grinning when she winks at him before she sliding off of the stool to retrieve their coffee.

... ...

They’ve been at the hospital for a few hours when Steve gets a text from Maria saying that she and Sam are picking up lunch for them—and honestly, Natasha had pretty much forgotten Maria’s revelation about Joseph Rogers until this moment.

It must’ve slipped Wanda’s mind, too, because Steve would have mentioned if his sister had told him that their father was adopted and had every trace of his life before New York wiped clean. Maybe he could’ve already known himself, but it seems unlikely. And Natasha would’ve preferred for Nick to be here so she and Steve can ask him about it directly, but his consigliere, Coulson, came to take his place last night, and Natasha isn’t going to wait this time to tell Steve, especially not with something this important.

“I’m assuming Maria knows what you two will eat because she didn’t ask for any preferences,” Steve tells Natasha and Wanda with a chuckle after reading the text.

Natasha smirks. “She does, but knowing Maria, it could be a complete surprise, too,” she quips, her gaze flitting to Wanda, and she sees the shift in the girl’s expression as she recalls the revelation that Maria dropped on them last night. Her eyebrows furrow and Natasha nods once before turning back to Steve, not surprised to find him watching their exchange curiously. “Maria found something out from Nick, but when she told me and Wanda last night, she didn’t know much,” Natasha says, and Steve lifts his eyebrows.

“Dad wasn’t born here, in the States,” Wanda tells him, her voice soft but still clear in the quiet of Pietro’s room. “He had his past erased.”

“Erased?” Steve’s hand tightens ever so slightly where it’s perched atop one of Natasha’s knees, his jaw tightening a little. He doesn’t look entirely surprised, though, and Natasha is willing to bet that’s because _something_ along these lines might’ve already been in his head ever since they’d found that photo of his father and her mother.

“Nick said that our father was adopted, but there are no records of it,” Wanda adds. “He came here when he was thirteen and anything about his past before that is gone.”

Natasha slides her hand over his, squeezing, and Steve turns his gaze to her as his forehead creases in a silent question.

“My mother also had parts of her past wiped out,” she tells him, and again, Steve doesn’t seem as surprised as you might’ve expected. Honestly, after the initial shock had gone away at Maria’s words, Natasha knew that the thought had already been in her head, too. Maybe she could never have guessed it exactly what Maria had told her, but it was clear ever since the night she and Steve had seen that photograph that their parents (and probably most of the Family, too) had been hiding _something_ all these years.

He nods, lifting her hand to brush a kiss to the back of it. “You okay?” he murmurs against her skin, and, despite everything, Natasha nods.

Because it’s true. Natasha may not like that her parents – and likely her aunt and uncle as well – have kept something from her for so long now, but at the same time, she doubts that anything her mother could be hiding is something that would make Natasha see her differently. And yes, Natasha would be lying if she said she hasn’t become a little warier around her parents since finding that photo, but still, she can’t quite bring herself to put any real distance between them or cut them off. They’re still her parents.

“Well, _that’s_ definitely new,” a voice drawls, and Natasha looks up as Maria and Sam walk into the room. Maria glances pointedly at Natasha’s hand in Steve’s before lifting her gaze up to Natasha’s, arching an eyebrow as a smirk plays at her lips, and Natasha is smirking, too, as she rolls her eyes.

“Man, we’re gone not even for a whole day and we miss out on all the fun,” Sam quips, setting two plastic bags of takeout on the table.

Natasha’s smirk widens. “I don’t know, I feel like you two must’ve had some fun of your own,” she retorts as Maria drops into the chair beside hers. “Have you even left each other’s side since last night, or before then, for that matter? You did show up to Steve’s together, if I recall correctly.”

Wanda giggles softly as Maria shakes her head. “Oh, no,” she argues. “If we’re not talking about you and Steve, we have something more exciting to discuss instead.”

Sam shoots Maria a smirk as he crosses his arms, leaning back against the wall. “I wouldn’t exactly call the Russian mob _exciting_ , but alright.”

That makes Natasha pause. Of all the things for these two could’ve brought up, she certainly hadn’t been expecting this. “What about the Russian mob?” Natasha asks.

“Turns out, some members of the Petrovich mob are here in New York, and they have been for weeks,” Maria answers, the amusement fading from her eyes as she shakes her head. “I don’t know how the hell that managed to slip under everyone’s radars for so long, but I suppose the Family has otherwise been preoccupied. The best part?” Maria arches an eyebrow. “My father found out that Yuri Petrovich is here with them. Quite a long way for the son of the head of the Petrovich mob to travel without a good reason.”

Natasha hums, sharing a glance with Steve. “Any ideas on what that reason could be?”

Maria shakes her head. “They have associates that they work occasionally based in New York, but a simple transaction or negotiation wouldn’t involve the heir of the Petrovich mob making the trip here in person,” she points out.

“Could they be here because of the Families?” Wanda asks, eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly. “All of the ambushes and shootings, and the crash at the Stark club…”

Steve squeezes Natasha’s hand. “It’d be one hell of an accusation without any real connection,” Steve points out, though he doesn’t sound as if he’s doubting his sister, either.

Natasha presses her lips together as her Aunt Maria’s words from the other day float through her thoughts once more.

_Things are changing, darling. Your uncle just wants to keep you safe._

Her aunt never addressed it when Natasha asked if she was in danger, and, at the moment, she’d simply thought it was because of what happened at the club. The whole family has been on edge ever since, even though Natasha has been in her fair of danger before, but she decided not to push the matter. It’s not as if they’ve never been concerned for her before, and just because they tried not to let her see their worry as much before doesn’t necessarily make it suspicious that they choose not to hide it now.

Unless, of course, they had a reason to be worried beyond a foreign mob being in New York. Unless there’s a _connection_ , as Steve had put it.

Her mother is Russian, and most likely Joseph Rogers is, too. And Natasha is willing to bet it isn’t just a coincidence that they not only ended up in mafias, but the _same_ mafia.

“Speaking of connection,” Maria continues, drawing Natasha from her thoughts as she pulls out her phone. “You’ll never guess who I happened to see yesterday.”

She swipes to a photo on her screen and hands it over to Natasha, and the first thing her stare catches on is the long, golden blonde hair swept into a ponytail. _Sarah Rogers_. Or whoever the hell this woman actually is, but it _is_ her—the very same woman that had been at the coffeehouse that morning. Maria had done a quick scan of the plates on the cars parked outside of Natasha’s apartment the day Natasha had told her about seeing a black compact car, and one _had_ come back registered under Sarah Rogers’ name.

“Is this her?” Steve asks, his voice a little gruff in Natasha’s ear, and she nods as she hands him the phone. She watches his reaction, just in case there might be some echo of recognition, but she isn’t surprised not to see any.

“She’s sure as hell living up to her alias, too,” Sam chimes in, making Natasha and Steve turn their gaze onto him. “We saw her go into your old apartment in Brooklyn.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows. “That apartment was empty when we went,” he says, glancing at Natasha. “Maybe we should’ve checked the other units.”

“Or maybe we need to go back,” Natasha says. It’s one thing for this woman to happen to have the same name as Sarah Rogers, and maybe it could have been a simple coincidence for Natasha to have noticed her in the first place. But her car being parked outside of Natasha’s apartment for weeks would be hard to just write off, and seeing her heading into the abandoned apartment where Sarah Rogers had lived is even harder to ignore. And if that’d been intentional, then Natasha doubts this woman would’ve been able to find the exact address without also determining the apartment number, too. Maybe she simply hadn’t found it by the time Steve and Natasha had gone there.

Maybe they’d simply missed her.

“Buck will be bummed to miss out on all the fun, but after lunch, I’m good to go,” Sam offers, patting his stomach with a smirk. “Can’t fight on an empty stomach.”

Maria fights off a smirk of her own as she rolls her eyes. Natasha hesitates, but Maria shakes her head before Natasha can get a word out. “Don’t even start,” Maria tells her. “Either you’ll need back-up in case this woman really has been stalking you, or you’ll need extra eyes to help search the building. Either way, we’re coming with you.”

Beside her, Steve turns to look at Wanda again. “You’ll be alright here for a few hours?” he asks, because he knows as much as Wanda would want to help, too, it’ll be hard for her not to be with Pietro. She knows he’d woken up overnight, but she has yet to see for herself that he’s truly okay.

Wanda gives him a small smile as she nods. “Of course,” she answers, her eyes shifting to Natasha. “And I know you don’t need this said, but be careful, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Steve answers instead, and, despite everything, Natasha feels a smile tug at her lips as she peers up at Steve. “I’ll have her back.”


	5. part five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You look like you’re thinking pretty hard up here,” she says lightly, bringing her other hand up to brush her thumb over his temple before cupping his cheek.
> 
> “Just wondering how offended you’d be if you knew I wanted you to wait in the car,” he admits, his lips twitching into a bit of a smile.
> 
> Natasha breathes out a laugh. “You’re the last person I’d ever be offended by, Steve,” she tells him, tilting her head at him, and he feels his smile curve just a little bit wider as he peers down at her. Her tone may be teasing, but he knows her words are nothing but sincere. “But that doesn’t mean I’d stay put if you asked me to,” she adds.
> 
> “I know.” He turns to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, murmuring against her skin, “That’s why I’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took another three weeks and I'm just not even sure how time got away from me, but I hope the chapter is exciting enough to be worth the wait and also, WE'RE ALMOST FINISHED WITH THIS STORY! Are you as nervous as I am? Because I'm super nervous about it and also about this chapter so please take pity on me, I only pretend to know what I'm doing.

Maria is the one to drive them back to Brooklyn this time, and though she hadn’t exactly left it up for debate, Steve wasn’t going to insist otherwise. He still hasn’t exactly wrapped his head around the fact that Natasha has a fucking _stalker_ in the first place, so he doubts he’s going to handle it all that well if they actually happen to find whoever this woman is that shares his mother’s name. He’s always been pretty damn good at keeping his composure. Yeah, he got into his fair share of fights when he was younger and scrawnier and didn’t have any business getting into them to begin with, but he was never the one that threw the first punch and he promised himself that he never will.

It’s different with Natasha, though. If he gets even the slightest feeling that someone will lunge at Nat – or, heaven forbid, pull a fucking gun on her – he’s not going to wait for them to make the first move before he does something about it.

“Hey,” Nat murmurs, covering his hand with hers atop her thigh, and it’s only then that he realizes how firm his grip on her had gotten while he’d been lost in thought. He loosens his hold, about to pull away, but she squeezes his fingers to keep him in place, giving him a small smile. “Keep making faces like that and those lines will stay there,” she teases, and, despite everything, Steve chuckles. It’s hard to believe it was only _yesterday_ that she made the same joke at him, slightly flushed and flirty from her wine.

He brings her hand up to his lips, brushing a kiss across the tops of her knuckles, simply because he wants to, and because he _can_.

As intense as the last day – hell, not even the last twenty-four hours – has been, he’s at least thankful that it’s given him this. Given him _her_. And honestly, he’s starting to understand that maybe they’ve always had this, right from the start, but he doesn’t regret that they took their time, either. He’d still been adjusting to everything that had suddenly changed in his life when they met, and he knows it wouldn’t have been right for him to want anything from her when he still felt the way he had about the Families.

But the Family is his family, too, and he has a place with them not just because of his father, but because he earned it. As ridiculous as it sounds, it feels a little bit like this life has been in his blood all along. That, sooner or later, he would’ve _wanted_ to be here. _Especially_ if it meant meeting Natasha and getting to have her in his life.

He can barely stomach the thought of someone attempting to take her away from him.

“You look like you’re thinking pretty hard up here,” she says lightly, bringing her other hand up to brush her thumb over his temple before cupping his cheek.

“Just wondering how offended you’d be if you knew I wanted you to wait in the car,” he admits, his lips twitching into a bit of a smile.

Natasha breathes out a laugh. “You’re the last person I’d ever be offended by, Steve,” she tells him, tilting her head at him, and he feels his smile curve just a little bit wider as he peers down at her. Her tone may be teasing, but he knows her words are nothing but sincere. “But that doesn’t mean I’d stay put if you asked me to,” she adds.

“I know.” He turns to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, murmuring against her skin, “That’s why I’d never ask.”

Her smile softens, but a chuckle draws her attention before she can reply – and no, Steve’s not all that surprised to find a smirk on Sam’s face when he turns toward Maria. “They’re so cute,” he tells her, and Maria rubs her lips together, her eyes glinting in amusement when she glances at Steve and Natasha in the rearview mirror. Then Sam catches their gaze, too, the amusement fading from his eyes even as he jokes, “If you two want to keep gazing into each other’s eyes, Maria and I can head inside alone.”

Steve feels his fingers tighten on Natasha’s hand as he glances out of the window. The apartment building looks every bit as abandoned and untouched as it had when he and Nat were here the other week, and there isn’t a car in sight, let alone the black compact that Maria had found out was being rented by Natasha’s stalker, but it doesn’t mean they’re in the clear just yet. Honestly, it was probably just luck that he and Nat hadn’t run into anyone when they were here. With how long the building has just been sitting here, Steve doesn’t doubt it’s had its fair share of people coming using it for shelter, and maybe also as a place to take care of business without drawing too much attention.

The four of them are probably drawing nothing _but_ attention now, though, as they drive up to the abandoned building, but that hardly matters at this point. There’s no way to be discreet about this in broad daylight, but they’ll have a better shot at finding something now than when it’s dark out.

Maria pulls up to the curb, killing the engine, and the four of them climb out of the car. “It’s the third floor, right?” she asks Steve, and he nods. “Should we start there?”

“What, we’re not splitting up to cover our own floors?” Sam retorts, his tone dry.

Steve cracks a smile as he shakes his head. He knows Sam is being sarcastic, but he replies, “Same floor, but we’ll split up to search the units.” This way they’ll still cover a little more ground while staying close enough to one another, just in case. He doesn’t say the words out loud, but Sam and Maria both nod at him in agreement, anyway.

He half-expects some sense of déjà vu to hit him as they make their way to the building and up the staircase, but honestly, he’s too damn preoccupied with the thought of Natasha’s stalker actually being here. The truth is, he’d rather not split up _at all_ , even if it’s an inefficient way to search the place. He’s just worried. No, he’s fucking _terrified_ of something happening to Natasha, which he knows is ridiculous. Natasha can sure as hell handle herself all on her own, but even more so with the three of them close by.

But the fact that her stalker was able to follow her without Natasha finding out already makes this person pretty fucking dangerous. They probably had more than a handful of opportunities to make a move if that was their intention, but instead, they _reached out_ to Natasha. And not just her, too; they got some of the Family involved, too.

Steve doesn’t know if that makes them less of a threat or more of one, but he has a damn good feeling they’re going to find out soon enough.

He smooths his hand over his jacket as they reach the third floor, feeling where his gun is tucked into the inside pocket, and exhales a sharp breath. “Shout at the first sign of movement,” he tells them, though his gaze is fixed on Natasha as he swallows lightly.

“Relax,” she says softly, one eyebrow quirking as the ghosts of a smirk tug at her lips. She tips her chin up, brushing her lips against his, and it should be stupid how that one little touch eases some of the tension in his jaw.

She steps away from him a second later, drawing her own gun from her jacket, and he manages a small grin in return before glancing at Maria and Sam with another nod.

The building itself is quiet as they make their way through the units, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re alone. Anyone inside would’ve been able to see the four of them make their way over from where they parked across the street, and as long as they stay out of sight, all they have to do wait before slipping out quietly. Still, all of the apartments have turned up empty so far as he makes his way through, even as he prods at all of the panels and pulls aside the vents to see if anything could be hidden inside.

He’s coming out of a unit at the end of the hallway when Sam steps out of the door across from him, raising his eyebrows in question. Steve shakes his head. “Nothing yet.”

“Me neither,” Sam replies, glancing around the corner where Maria and Nat had gone to search the other half of the floor. “Your old place is over on that side, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. They’re probably getting to it now, if they haven’t finished up before us,” Steve says. “You think there’s a chance we could actually run into someone in here?”

Sam presses his lips together, considering this. “Some _one_? Maybe, maybe not,” he admits. “But I do think there’s some _thing_ here. That woman came into this building and there’s no way it’s a coincidence. She could’ve seen us coming and slipped out, or she could be waiting for us. Either way, I’m still betting we find some trace of her here.”

“I’m not sure which one I’d prefer.” Steve exhales sharply, shaking his head once. “Come on. Nat and Maria should be done by now, too.”

He’s barely gotten the words out when he hears a muted thud just down the hallway, and then the distant yet distinct sound of something shattering, and Steve only takes half a second to glance at Sam before they’re running down the hallway.

He rounds the corner, Sam on his heels, and they only barely manage to dodge Maria as she’s darting out of one of the apartments, her eyes sharp with alarm. “Is that—”

She’s cut off by another thud, this time harder and closer, rattling the thin walls of the building, and Steve’s gaze darts over Maria’s shoulder.

Nat.

Fuck. _Fuck._

Steve rushes around Maria, withdrawing his gun from inside his jacket, and he’s too fucking preoccupied with the obvious sounds of a struggle just a few feet away to pay much attention to the fact that he’s running right into his mother’s old apartment. He’s through the door in time to see two bodies struggling against each other’s hold as they stumble out of the bedroom and practically fall onto the floor of the small kitchen, and Steve feels his heart slam against his ribcage as he catches a flash of Nat’s scarlet hair.

His fingers twitch toward the trigger of his gun, but there’s no fucking way he’d be able to shoot without hitting Nat, too.

He starts toward them instead, but before he can step in, Nat gets her leg up and her boot braced against the edge of the counter, and then she’s throwing her weight back and onto the floor, using her momentum to fling the other woman off of her and against the wall.

Nat rolls back up and onto her feet, gaze darting toward Steve just as he tosses his gun at her, and she catches it with ease as he lunges for the other woman. He kicks her feet back out from under her before she can get up, too, and then she’s on her knees as he grasps her arms, drawing a slight hiss from her as he locks her wrists in his grasp behind her back. He only has a second to notice that she doesn’t even attempt to struggle against him before Natasha takes a step toward the woman, her gun aimed at her.

The blonde’s head turns toward the door as Maria and Sam fill the entryway, their guns also drawn, and then she glances over her shoulder, something quick flickering in her eyes as she catches his stare.

“Let’s talk like grownups, shall we?” Natasha asks, taking another step closer, and though the blonde hums in reply to Nat, her gaze is still on Steve’s.

“Who are you?” he demands, cinching his grip on her ever so slightly.

But she doesn’t so much as flinch as he twists her arm a little tighter behind her back. “Yelena,” she answers, and in the same breath, she adds, “Your father sent me.”

... ... 

To Steve’s credit, he doesn’t let his hold on the woman slacken for a second, even as his entire body flinches back in surprise.

“How the hell do you know his father?” Natasha demands, her grip tightening on the gun. Of all the things for this woman to say right now, that certainly hadn’t been what Natasha had been anticipating, though that probably doesn’t mean a hell of a lot in the end considering she doesn’t know what the fuck she expected in the first place.

“Joseph Rogers knows my mentor. He sent me here under your mother’s alias to get your attention and to find you. _Both_ of you,” she tells the, turning to catch Natasha’s gaze this time, and there’s something in her composed expression that makes Natasha pause. “And if you reach into my pocket, Steve will have his proof that this is true.”

Natasha glances up at Steve, and he takes a moment to hold his stare before turning to Sam, nodding once, and both Natasha and Maria keep their guns trained on Yelena as Sam kneels beside her and Steve. Yelena simply blinks back at Sam, her expression still composed as he reaches into one of the pockets of her coat, pulling out a small piece of paper. A polaroid photo, she realizes. She can’t see what it’s of from this distance, but whatever’s pictured has both Sam and Steve tensing in an instant, shock flickering in their expressions as they exchange a glance. Sam flips the polaroid over, revealing what seems to be a blue smudge on the back, and Steve mutters a curse under his breath.

“Why the hell would my father give that to you?” Steve demands, but the edge in his voice has eased. Despite his question, it’s clear the photo had been enough proof.

“What is it?” Maria asks.

“A photo of Sarah and Steve on Steve’s first birthday,” Sam answers, still staring down at the polaroid as he stands back up. “Joseph always keeps the thing on him because it’s the only copy they had, and Steve’s fingerprint is dried in the paint on the back.” He flips it over and holds it out for Natasha to get a closer look, and, sure enough, there’s a tiny fingerprint in the smudge of blue paint that’s dried on one of the corners. It’s almost entirely rubbed off and faded from years of sunlight, but it’s definitely still distinct.

“That may be proof you’ve been in contact with Joseph, but that doesn’t prove that you’re telling the truth,” Natasha counters, and she swears she sees a flicker of surprise in the woman’s eyes as she lifts her eyebrows ever so slightly. If Natasha didn’t know any better, she’d say the woman almost looks impressed.

“Perhaps,” Yelena concedes. “But you may want hear the story before judging if it’s false.”

Steve’s jaw flexes as he considers her words, sharing another look with Natasha, and this time she’s the one to nod. “I disarmed her in the room,” she tells Maria, and she nods, heading over to retrieve her gun as Sam quickly works to pat Yelena down, then nods at Steve when he’s cleared her.

Natasha lowers her own gun as Steve releases Yelena’s wrists. The woman still poses a threat even without a weapon – Natasha just had a firsthand experience of that – but being outnumbered four-to-one, and especially with three of them armed, Natasha doubts she’d attempt anything. Even if she could somehow catch all of them off guard, she would have a pretty slim chance of making it out of the building before one of them caught up to her, or, at worst case, grazed her with a shot to cut off her chance to escape.

Sam shuts the front door behind him as Maria reemerges from the empty bedroom, Yelena’s gun now strapped into her holster as she passes Natasha’s gun over to Steve.

“Okay,” Steve says, narrowing his eyes slightly at Yelena. “You say my father sent you, but where the hell from? Where has he been this whole time?”

“Russia,” she answers, and Natasha feels her chest tighten ever so slightly at the revelation as Yelena turns to catch her gaze. “He comes from the same hometown as your mother, Natasha. You found his box in this apartment before I could, so I know you both have seen the photograph already. You know it’s true that Joseph and Melina knew each other from before they came here, to America. My mentor, Alexi, is the other boy in that photo you found. He’s been friends with both of your parents since childhood.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, and Natasha knows they’re both thinking the same thing: Nick had said that Joseph had his past erased. A past that _did_ link him back to Natasha’s mother, as that photograph had implied.

“And the other girl with them?” Natasha asks. “Who is she supposed to be?”

Natasha is still staring right at Yelena, so she doesn’t miss the way the woman’s expression pinches ever so slightly at the question before smoothing back into composure. “Alia,” she answers. “She was Melina’s best friend, and she was the mother of Yuri Petrovich.”

“ _Was_ ,” Maria echoes, raising her eyebrows in question.

Yelena hums. “She passed a few months ago, killed under suspicious circumstances, which was what brought Joseph back to Russia in the first place.” She shifts her gaze onto Steve once more, and her calculated, almost detached tone wavers for the first time, softening with something akin to sympathy as she adds, “Her marriage to Ivan had been arranged, and he is a cruel man. Joseph believes wholeheartedly that he had her murdered, if he in fact did not commit the crime itself, and killing Ivan is why Joseph remains in Russia today. He and Alexi want to carry out his murder, and Joseph sent me here to help Melina prevent Alia and Ivan’s son, Yuri, from carrying out a murder of his own.”

“Who the hell is he after all the way over here?” Sam asks.

But Natasha barely hears him, her aunt’s words coming back to her again, warning her that things are changing. She’d said that her uncle wanted her safe but never said why. Never explained why her uncle, who’s never trusted cops, who knew Steve would be getting heat the moment he stepped into his father’s shoes, would push Natasha toward befriending him, spending more and more of her time with him and therefore Bucky and Sam, too. He was _glad_ that Wanda has Bucky watching over her shoulder, cop or not.

She remembers how _worried_ her mother had been after someone put a car through the front of the club. How she’d never seen her mother so visibly upset before.

Her eyes flit to Steve, and somehow, she’s not surprised to find his gaze already on her, his jaw flexing as he clenches and unclenches it.

“Natasha,” Steve guesses before Yelena can reply to Sam, his voice low and harsh. _Dangerous_. “He’s come here for her, hasn’t he?”

“Yuri believes Natasha is his blood,” she says, and Natasha nearly flinches, something cold tightening over her chest. “A sister, to be exact, from an affair rumored to have been between Melina and Ivan. She would be Ivan’s first born, which would give Natasha a stronger claim as heir to the Petrovich mob over him.”

Natasha shakes her head. “That’s a lie.”

Yelena rubs her lips together, simply staring back at Natasha for a beat, gauging her expression. Natasha has no rational reason to explain why she knows this, though at the same time, Natasha knows there’s some sort of truth in the woman’s words, too. “There was never proof of its truth, nor was there proof against it,” Yelena admits after a long moment. “Yuri knows this himself, but regardless, the potential of it being true is enough for him to want to rid of Natasha from contention to the Petrovich mob altogether.”

Well, fuck. If that’s the truth, that would be the connection they were missing for the Russian mob to be in New York in the first place.

“Even if it _is_ true, Natasha would’ve never posed a threat,” Maria argues. “The mob isn’t a monarchy. What makes him think they would choose her when she’s never even been to Russia before?”

“Ivan has been losing control over his men for a while. Most of them don’t agree with how reckless he is, and Yuri is even more careless than his father.”

“And any potential reason to discredit him is something Yuri is going to rid of himself,” Steve guesses. Yelena turns to him, nodding once, and he exhales a sharp breath as he brings a hand up to rub at his jaw. “I’m guessing you’re on the inside of this mob, since you seem to know all about the talk going around behind closed doors.”

“I am. I was recruited young and without a choice, the same way my mentor was. The same way your father was,” she tells Steve, but then she turns to face Natasha once more, and her composed expression cracks ever so slightly at the edges as she considers her next words. “They have been waiting _years_ to put an end to Ivan, and whether you believe me or not, I suggest you do the same to Yuri,” she says. “He sees you as a threat, which means that as long as you’re alive, he’ll keep coming after you himself.”

... ...

“ _Shit_. Seems like I missed out on all the fun,” Bucky replies dryly with a shake of his head, and, despite everything, Steve breathes out a chuckle.

It felt as if they were at that apartment all fucking day when Wanda called to tell him that Pietro was awake, but when Steve caught sight of the time after they’d hung up, he realized they had only been gone for three, maybe four of hours at most. Bucky had only just gotten to the hospital about an hour before they made it back, having just gotten off of his shift at the precinct and coming straight over, and Steve had pulled him into an empty room across from Pietro’s to fill Bucky in on everything Yelena had told them at the apartment. Steve will get around to telling Pietro and Wanda, too, of course, because it’s something they should hear about their father, regardless if it’s actually true.

And honestly? Steve has a really damn good hunch to believe it is, as ridiculous as that sounds. Natasha had said it earlier, that Yelena had no real proof for them to believe anything she told them, photograph or not—but he could also see it in Natasha’s eyes as they left the apartment that she _did_ believe the woman, at least to some extent.

And Steve believes her, too. Yelena had known exactly who to send those pictures of Natasha to in order to get her attention, but also to not draw too much attention onto herself and end up with the Family trying to find her. She’d known Tony and Peter would keep quiet about it if Natasha asked, no matter how worried they’d be, just as she’d known that Wanda would’ve come straight to Steve and listen to him if he’d asked her to do the same. That’s not something Yelena could’ve figured out on her own so quickly.

Not unless she had a reliable source.

His father. _Fuck_.

Steve feels a little selfish even thinking so, but, despite everything, part of him hopes that there _is_ some truth to what Yelena had told them. He never dared to entertain the thought that his father was _dead_ rather than just missing, but he would’ve been ignorant to dismiss the possibility altogether.

If Yelena is telling the truth, though, then his father hadn’t actually gone missing at all. He slipped off to Russia, undetected, and likely with help from the Family, who have known all along where he’d come from and what brought him to America in the first place.

 _Ivan is a decade their senior, but he’d wanted Alia from the moment he saw her,_ Yelena had said. _But Alia adored Joseph, and that made him competition in Ivan’s eyes_.

Steve had nearly let out laugh at this. Ivan Petrovich was so intent on having Alia to himself that even just the idea of Joseph being in his way was enough of a threat to Ivan to justify in wanting him dead. Steve’s father had to flee his home, his _country_ , at thirteen, and only after changing his name, wiping his past, and being adopted by the most notorious family in New York did he truly escape—and now Yuri Petrovich is willing to go to the same lengths, all because of a rumor that makes Natasha a threat in his eyes.

It sounds as if it could be ridiculous, but there was no mistaking the look in Yelena’s eyes. Steve is willing to bet Yelena doesn’t scare easily, but it’s clear that she fears Yuri. Or, she at least fears what he could be capable of.

“I don’t know if _fun_ is the right word,” Steve mutters, rubbing a hand over his face, and his best friend offers a wry grin. “You think it’s crazy if I believe everything she said?”

“Nah.” Bucky shakes his head. “When I’m working a case or interrogating a suspect, sometimes I find crazy shit, hear insane confessions, and yeah, sometimes you know right away if they’re lying, no matter how convincing they seem. But sometimes, you also know when you’re hearing the truth, even if it’s not all of it just yet.” Steve turns to catch Bucky’s stare as his best friend drops a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “If you’ve got a hunch that tells you what that woman said is true, I wouldn’t just ignore it.”

Steve nods, then leans back against the wall as he exhales. “Let’s say we know it’s all true—on one hand, now we know exactly who we’re up against.”

“On the other hand, that means taking care of a Russian mobster and however many men he brought along with him,” Bucky finishes, blowing out an exhale of his own as he shakes his head. “Don’t know if that’s better or worse.”

“If you asked Nat, she’d say it’s always better to know what you’re dealing with,” Steve points out.

“How’s she doing with all of this, by the way?” Bucky asks, glancing across the hallway and into Pietro’s room at where Maria and Natasha are talking close together by the window. “Wanda could tell something was up with her the second you all walked in, but she’s still got a damn good poker face after hearing all of _this_.”

Steve swallows lightly, turning to follow his gaze onto Natasha, too, just as her eyes slip over Maria’s shoulder and onto him, the ghosts of a smile touching her lips.

“I think she’s trying to be rational and not to make a decision about any of it just yet,” Steve admits. “But I can tell that she believes it, too, at least to some extent. Other than the part about Melina having an affair,” he amends, his voice coming out softer now. “She doesn’t think that’s true. No, she _knows_ it isn’t, and I think she’s right.” Steve glances back at Bucky. “Yelena said there was never proof against the affair, but there was never proof of it, either. Whatever the answer is, I don’t think it’s an obvious one.”

Bucky stares at him for a moment, searching his expression. “You have a guess, don’t you?”

Steve fights back a wince as he nods. “Yeah,” he admits, not risking another glance at Natasha, knowing she’ll be able to tell that something is bothering him. “Just one.”

... ...

It isn’t nearly as late tonight as they leave the hospital as it had been yesterday, but it’s still pretty much a given that Natasha is going back to Steve’s place rather than her own apartment. He does ask her if she wants to swing by, though, to grab a change of clothes and anything else she wants, but frankly, she’s too damn tired even for that. Yeah, she knows she’ll have to head back soon, even if it is just to pack a bag. But after today (after the last _two days_ , really) she’d rather not head all the way back to her apartment at the tail end of rush hour just to turn around and head back this way to Steve’s, and Wanda insists that doesn’t mind letting Natasha borrow a few more clothes.

And the truth is, even though the girl wouldn’t mind lending Natasha anything even under normal circumstances, she’s probably every bit as eager as Natasha just to shower and climb into bed. Wanda had said that she didn’t sleep well last night because she’d been so worried about Pietro, and even though she spent most of her day just sitting in Pietro’s hospital room and barely lifting a finger, her exhaustion is probably catching up with her. She already looks like she’s ready to pass out in the back seat with Bucky.

Natasha thinks that she nearly passes out, too, because it seems as if it only takes a minute before they’re pulling onto Steve’s street and into his garage.

“You can use my bathroom,” Steve tells Natasha, a hand on her hip and his lips gently pressing against her temple as they head into the house. She glances over her shoulder at him and he gives her a small smile and a gentle squeeze. “I’ll grab a change of clothes for you from Wanda’s room after she gets settled. Take all the time you need.”

She knows he means more than taking her time in his shower, and she feels her lips curve into a small smile of her own as warmth flutters in her chest. “Steve,” she says.

He catches her chin gently. “I’ll be up in a second,” he promises, his voice barely above a whisper as he brushes a kiss to her lips. “Just take your time.”

She hums softly, tipping her head up to slant her lips against his just a little harder, a little longer, before drawing back and murmuring a simple, “okay,” that makes his smile widen just a little bit more.

Steve had filled Pietro and Wanda in on everything that Yelena had told them at the apartments, so Natasha knows that, even though he’d told her to take her time while he checks in with Wanda, he probably isn’t planning on it taking long at all. Even if Wanda thought of something else to talk to her brother about since leaving the hospital, it’s clear that the discussion will likely wait until the morning considering the girl looks as though she’ll be out as soon as her head hits the pillows. Natasha can definitely relate.

She strips out of her clothes as the shower takes a second to heat up, and then she’s stepping inside the wide stall, not bothering to slide the glass door closed behind her as she lets out a soft moan at the steady spray hitting her skin. She hadn’t felt drained – not physically, at least – but the warmth seems to soothe a dull ache in her muscles.

It’s only been a few minutes when there’s a soft knock, and Natasha leans back a little to watch as Steve steps in, clothes tucked into his arm and her toothbrush from the hallway bathroom in his hand. He pauses just inside the door, his eyes tracing down from the tips of her damp hair along the curve of her back – and, despite the exhaustion that had been tugging at her just minutes ago, she feels a flutter low in her stomach as his gaze slides back up to hers. He raises his eyebrows slightly, a silent question.

How was it only yesterday that the roles were reversed? That she’d been the one asking him this same question, offering him this same choice?

Unlike the night before, though, the hum in her veins feels a little less frantic. There’s something gentler about the heat that unfurls through her, something still thrilling but also a little comforting, too, making her shiver delicately as she turns herself toward him a little more. And that seems to be all the answer he needs as he sets her clothes and toothbrush aside on the counter and then closes the distance between them. She reaches out, grasping at his shirt to tug him close, nearly flushed against her front, and if he notices the fact that she’s getting him wet, spilling water outside of the shower and onto the floor between them, he ignores it in favor of slanting his lips against hers in a kiss.

He reaches between them, hand sliding up her side, fingertips playing with the ends of her hair before cupping the weight of her breast in his palm, and her mouth parts under his in a soft gasp.

“Are you going to join me, or are we just going to waste all your warm water?” she murmurs, tipping up to kiss him a little harder before he can reply, teeth grazing at his lower lip, and his lips pull into a boyish sort of grin as he breaks their kiss to lean away.

He reaches behind him, fists his shirt with one hand as he tugs it up and over his head, letting it fall to the floor as he pushes his jeans down, and Natasha lets her gaze trace over him as his did her as he steps closer, backing her into the shower and sliding the glass door closed behind him. She didn’t have a moment to take him in last night, but now that she does, she feels her tongue dart out, licking at her lips, then turning him so that his back is blocking her from the spray of the shower as she sinks to her knees.

“Nat,” he says, his voice a little lower, a little rougher, and she peers up at him from under her lashes as she licks up his length. She nearly shivers at the soft groan he lets out, the way his hand cups her hair, fingers tangling in the wet strands. “We’re supposed to be showering,” he reminds, voice light with amusement.

She quirks an eyebrow. “If you wash my hair for me while I’m down here, we’ll be multitasking,” she replies, and then she’s taking him into her mouth, sucking gently, and he lets out a throaty chuckle as his fingers tighten their grip on her damp strands.

And she’d been mostly teasing, not genuinely asking him to wash her while she works her mouth over him, so it takes her a little by surprise when she feels the cold touch of his shampoo in her hair. She almost pulls back to peer up at him, but then his fingertips are massaging gently into her scalp, sending another delicate shiver down her spine as she moans softly around his length, and she can practically hear the smirk in his voice as he groans out her name. It’s strangely, almost scarily intimate to be like this with him – his hands methodically lathering her hair with shampoo, carefully keeping it out of her face as she tastes him – that she very nearly has the ridiculous urge to _blush_.

At the same time, though, the way they move together is easy, almost instinctual, and then he’s pulling the showerhead off of the hook, rinsing his shampoo out of her hair before sliding out of her mouth and pulling her back onto her feet.

“Trust me, love, I’m more than ready for you,” he groans softly, and her heart skips in her chest, barely a beat of pause passing as he fumbles to stick the showerhead back into place before he’s on her again, turning them to the side to press her back against the wall. She gasps at the cold tile against her wet, warm skin, and he slips his tongue into her parted lips, sweeping against hers as his hand slides down her body and between her legs where her skin is hotter and slicker under his fingertips. He rubs at her folds, parting her, pressing against her tiny bundle of nerves, and she very nearly whimpers into his mouth as her hips roll against his hand, seeking more. “ _Nat_ ,” he groans.

She’s tingling, _aching_ , and she kisses him harder and murmurs a simple, almost desperate, “ _please_ ,” knowing that he’ll understand what she wants. What she _needs_.

He lets out a low, barely-there sort of growl, parting their kiss again to grasp her by her hips, and then she’s being lifted, her back sliding a little higher up the wall as her legs wrap around his hips. She hooks an arm around his neck, her other coming around his back, fingernails digging into the muscle there as his tip presses against her.

And then he’s sliding inside, slowly, _insanely_ _slowly_ , and her head falls forward against his shoulder as she lets out a shaky breath. The press of him is delicious, almost dizzyingly so, and his groan is hot and long right against her ear as he buries himself all the way in.

She’s never once been with anyone like this, with nothing between them—but with Steve, she can’t imagine feeling him in any other way, not even for their first time.

And the hard slant of his lips against hers tells Natasha that the feeling is almost more than mutual.

He works his hips slowly against her the same way she had worked his length slowly between her lips, and she’s not quite sure if he’s damn near torturing her on purpose, but she finds that maybe she doesn’t even _care_. She relishes in every little sensation as he slides against her, tongue sweeping into her mouth, savoring the taste of her lips with the same gentle, thorough way he savors being inside of her, and it seems as if they’re like this for _hours_ before her body starts to tremble. She can feel herself unraveling at the seams with every thrust of his hips, every nip and suck of his mouth, and then she’s twisting her head to the side, gasping as her body curls and that white-hot pleasure finally, _finally_ bursts over her. Her spine arches off of the wall, but only barely, Steve’s body pinning her in place as his own resolve snaps, his hips working harder and faster.

And then he’s falling apart with her, tucking his head into the curve of her neck and groaning against the thrum of her pulse.

The water is lukewarm, starting to turn cold as he slowly, gently pulls out and sets her down on her feet, his arm coming around her as her legs tremble ever so slightly. He presses a kiss to her cheek, and then her temple, and then the middle of her forehead, and she blinks her eyes open slowly to peer up at him with a soft smile.

She leans against him as he works his soap over her skin, washing her off before quickly doing the same for himself, and then he’s twisting off the water, grabbing a towel off of the rack and wrapping her in the plush material.

He starts to hand her the pajamas he’d taken from Wanda’s room after she’s finished patting herself dry, but she gives him a little smile, plucking his pajama shirt off of the counter and slipping it over her head. He gives her that boyish smile again as she slips her arms through, and then he’s grasping her hips, pulling her close, and her eyelids flutter closed as he kisses her cheek. “You okay?” he murmurs into her skin, and she knows he’s asking about quite a few things in this moment, but her answer comes easily.

“I am now.”

... ...

He knows he’d fallen asleep just after he and Natasha climbed into bed, but he finds himself awake, a few hours before daylight, peering down at Natasha as she lays beside him. He believed her when she said that she was alright, at least in that moment, but he’s still relieved with how soundly she sleeps. He knows his sister didn’t get much rest last night because she kept waking up, drifting in and out, but Natasha doesn’t so much as stir as he gently peels back the covers and slips from the bed, padding quietly toward the door. He doesn’t switch on the hallway light, not wanting to risk waking Wanda since she likes to keep her door open, but he doesn’t need it, either, as he makes his way to his office just before the staircase. Maybe _this_ is what’s kept him up, he muses, switching on his desk lamp and picking up the photograph of his father and Melina.

Everyone says that Steve is the spitting image of his father, but he knows that you can still see traces of his mother in his face if you look hard enough.

Natasha doesn’t believe that her mother had an affair with Ivan, and, as Steve picks up a framed photograph of his father with Howard and Edward Stark – one Steve had retrieved from one of his father’s offices as he’d been searching them – he’s inclined to agree with Nat.

She has the same distinct Stark features that make her look just like Edward, and Howard and Tony and Peter. When they’re standing together, there’s no doubt that they’re family, and he thinks that alone is enough reason to not believe that Ivan could be Nat’s father. She looks just like her Edward and just Howard in the same way Steve looks just like Joseph—but, for as much as Natasha takes after her father, she takes nothing from Melina. No matter how hard he looks, Steve can’t find a trace of her in Nat’s face.

And it only gives Steve another reason to believe the theory he’d told Bucky at the hospital.

... ...

She feels Steve’s lips pressing against the back of her neck, skimming along the column of her throat, the weight of his arm draped over her waist from behind, and Natasha turns to press her face into the pillow, trying in vain to stifle the smile tugging at her lips. She feels him chuckle softly into her skin, hand sliding down to give her hip a gentle squeeze, and then he’s breathing out a laugh as she swiftly rolls them over, legs tangling in the sheets as she ends up on top of him. She braces her forearms against his chest and lifts herself up by her elbows, tipping her chin down to peer down at his widening, boyish sort of grin as her wild hair falls around their faces and onto his pillow.

He reaches up, tucking a chunk of the wild strands behind her ear before cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing at the corner of her mouth. “Good morning,” he says.

She nearly laughs. “Good morning.”

His eyes glint up at her, one of his arms draping across the small of her back as he wraps it around her. “You’re awfully chipper for someone who had quite the day yesterday,” he teases gently, echoing her words to him from just yesterday morning, and this time, she does let out a soft laugh.

“I had a pretty decent end to my night,” she replies, feigning nonchalance despite the fact that she feels her smile widening.

“Only decent?” He narrows his eyes at her, still teasing, before cupping his hand behind the back of her neck and drawing her close to brush a kiss to her forehead, then to her cheek. “You’re okay, though?” he asks into her skin, and she lifts her head, meeting his stare so he can see it in her eyes that she means it as she nods. She’s as well she can be, all things considered—but, as she peers down into his eyes, she catches something flickering in them that makes her pause, though she can’t quite place what it could be.

Just a few weeks ago, she would’ve simply kept it to herself, attempted to riddle it out on her own. But instead, she lets her curiosity flicker across her own expression for him to see as she asks, “What is it?”

He hums softly, his smile turning a little apologetic as he strokes the pad of his thumb across her cheek. “I’m sorry for reacting the way I did about you hiding the ‘Sarah Rogers’ thing from me,” he tells her, his voice soft. She simply blinks down at him, surprised, but he continues on without her having to ask. “I should’ve known right away that it wasn’t for any other reason than to be mindful of how I’d feel, because I would’ve exactly the same thing,” he tells her, something in his voice that clicks into place.

“You have some thoughts about what we learned yesterday that you don’t want to share,” she guesses. Guilt starts to tug at his expression, but she simply smiles at him and shakes her head, leaning down to kiss the bridge. “It’s okay,” she tells him gently, pulling back just enough to catch his gaze again. “You don’t have to tell me yet.”

“I just want to be sure,” he tells her, his voice just as gentle, but the guilt dissolves from his eyes as he stares up into her smiling face and that’s all she _really_ cares about in this moment. He’s being cautious, exactly as she tried to be with him, and the fact that she’s not reacting the same way he had is simply because the circumstances are different. _They’re_ different with each other, even from just two days ago, and they won’t waste time holding things against each other when it won’t help either of them.

“Okay,” she replies, leaning against his palm. “It’s probably for the best. I don’t even know where to start.”

“We should probably start with the fact that someone may be threatening your life,” he points out as his arm tightens around her firmly. _Protective_.

She feels her smile widen a little bit at this, even as she hums in agreement. Even before Yelena had said the words out loud, Natasha knew there’d been some truth behind them. She knew there had to be a reason her family seemed so _worried_ about her every move, why what happened at the club had rattled her parents so much, even though Natasha has had much closer calls before – and, now that she’s thinking about it, why it never truly felt real that a man as imposing as Joseph Rogers could ever go missing.

Because he _hadn’t_. He simply slipped away, and the Family helped cover his tracks.

“Be honest with me,” she tells him, even though, rationally, she knows she doesn’t ever need to ask. “Do you think that part is true?”

“I do,” he answers without an ounce of doubt or hesitation. Then, his voice a little rougher, he adds, “I think all of it is true.”

She nods once. “I do, too,” she admits, barely above a whisper. Even if she hasn’t entirely wrapped her head around all of it, and even if some part of her still wants to be rational and skeptical instead of taking the word of a stranger that’d been stalking her, Natasha has the strongest instinct telling her that she believed Yelena.

“I also think that Howard has known where my dad’s been this whole time,” Steve adds, not sounding upset or critical by the possibility, even if he and Wanda and Pietro would have every reason to be. “I think your mom has, too, which would probably mean both of your parents have known. Probably Nick. Which works out because it means that they’ll likely believe us if we tell them everything Yelena said, if they don’t already know the whole story. My dad could’ve contacted them, now that I think about it.”

“Does that bother you?” Natasha asks, genuinely curious. She knows that, between him and the twins, Steve would maybe have the most resentment over his father pulling this move. His entire life was upended the moment Joseph Rogers disappeared, and it could piss Steve off more knowing that his father never actually went missing.

“I feel like it should,” he answers, his voice almost wistful as his stare shifts to the ceiling, turning distant. “Is it wrong that it made me understand him better?”

She shifts herself to sit up, straddling his chest, and she grasps his face gently with both of her hands as she brings his gaze back to hers. “It’s not wrong at all,” she tells him. “Or, if it is, then so is the fact that I feel even closer to my mother than I did before. If what Yelena said was true…” She shakes her head, trying to collect her thoughts as she stares down at Steve’s face, his expression patient, encouraging. “My mother cared so much for Alia and Joseph that she joined a _mob_ so they could try to protect each other.”

Yelena said that Joseph didn’t have a choice in joining, just like her mentor and just like her. But Melina and Alia _did_. They had a chance to cut ties and walk away from him for their own protection, yet they chose not to let Joseph join alone because of how much they cared for him.

Natasha doesn’t need to hear the story from her mother to know this is true, because she knows how protective her mother is, how much she values her loved ones.

Natasha has witnessed it for herself, _felt it_ for herself, every day of her life. And the truth is, even if she learns that her mother is keeping worst secrets from her, it wouldn’t make Natasha love her any less.

Steve’s eyes wrinkle in a smile. “I could’ve told you just how fiercely loving your mother was even before I met her,” he tells Natasha, his hands sliding over her hips to squeeze them gently, and she feels a warmth fluttering in her chest as he adds, “I’d already seen it in you.”

... ...

Bucky and Wanda are already in the kitchen when he and Natasha make their way downstairs, Bucky standing at the stove and laying a few strips of bacon on a greased pan as Wanda sits on the empty counterspace beside him, gently kicking her legs back and forth.

Her smile is small but bright, brighter than Steve’s seen it in what feels like _days_ —and, as she breathes out a giggle into the rim of her coffee mug that she’s cradling in her hands, he can already tell that she got more rest than she had the other night. He knows half of it is because she spent the day with Pietro and saw for herself that he’s doing well and recovering faster than his doctors anticipated, which is a good sign. But he also knows the other half of it is because Bucky has been doting on her since yesterday.

Even Pietro had seemed surprisingly chipper with Bucky there. Steve had known his best friend and his brother were getting along better, but it was still a surprise to find them laughing together as Wanda napped, far more comfortable with each other than when they all had breakfast together the other week.

Wanda glances over as he and Natasha walk in, her eyes glinting. “Didn’t like my pajamas, Nat?” she teases, one eyebrow arched.

Bucky looks over his shoulder at them, too, lips hitching in a smirk as he takes in the fact that Natasha is still in Steve’s shirt. The hem grazes the tops of her thighs, hitting low enough that she’s still covered, though she’d still thought to pull on the clean underwear still on the bathroom counter before they left his room.

“I’d thought I’d try something new, kind of like you and that bite mark on your neck,” Natasha retorts with a smile of her own, teasing her right back.

Wanda just giggles again, her cheeks flushing as she sips on her coffee, and Bucky shakes his head as he turns back to his bacon.

“I need coffee before we attempt that conversation,” Steve mutters with a shake of his head, his lips twitching as he fights off a smirk of amusement. Natasha grins, brushes a kiss to his chin as she passes him on her way to the fridge, and Steve walks over to where Wanda is perched on the counter. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she replies softly, almost sounding surprised by her own answer, though he can tell it’s sincere. Steve nods, smiling as he presses a kiss to her temple.

“Not to put a damper on our good mood, but I got a text from Sam,” Bucky says, switching off the burner and setting the pan of bacon aside, and then he turns to face Steve as he sets a hand atop Wanda’s knee. “They’ve been looking into all of those anonymous tips that were called in to bust those shipments and deals and it turns out the callers were always near the scene. _Every_ single one of those calls pinged off of cell towers within a fifty-foot radius or less.” He shakes his head. “No way that’s just a coincidence.”

“But we’ve always suspected it could be someone working for the Family, haven’t we?” Wanda asks.

“Yeah, but this puts them _at_ each scene, and not just in passing, either,” Bucky points out, giving her knee a gentle squeeze as she meets his gaze. “They stayed long enough to see things were carried through and then fled, just like the Asgard car you caught during your drive-by, and the one driving away when Pietro got shot.”

“That’s something we could look into on our end,” Natasha chimes in, a glass of orange juice in hand as she comes to stand beside Steve. “All four Families are strict about keeping some kind of log on which of their men are on each job, which cars or guns are being given out, ever since Uncle Howard found out that someone was stealing tech from his startups and selling his prototypes. They were never caught, but all four Families have been strict on operations ever since to prevent it from happening again.”

“If Hela is the one behind it, that doesn’t necessarily mean she would’ve been in any one of those cars,” Steve reminds.

“Maybe not, but Hela has always loved doing the dirty work herself,” Wanda tells him, sharing a knowing look with Natasha. “She craves chaos, and she’s a perfectionist. If you’d known Hela back when Frigga hadn’t reined how often she spilled blood all over the streets, you’d know that anything she’s involved in, she carries out herself.”

“Which means if the cars really are tied to those scenes, she’ll be in one,” Bucky guesses, and Wanda hums, nodding. “Then that’s what we’ll look into.”

Steve slides a hand over Natasha’s hip, drawing her to his chest, and for a fleeting second, he notices how easily her body fits against his as she leans into him—but he’s interrupted by another thought that crosses his mind, one that’s occurred to him more than once ever since he started suspecting Hela could be involved with all of this. “Let’s say Hela _is_ the one behind all the busts… that means she cost all four Families their profits,” he points out. “Could Odin still defend her somehow, since she’s his daughter?”

“No,” Natasha answers. “When it comes the actual families, that kind of decision falls to the head. Odin couldn’t fight it even if he wanted to.”

“The head, as in the head of the Families?” Bucky asks.

“Yes.” She holds Steve’s gaze, a small smile curving at her lips when she sees the pieces click into place in his mind. “And with Joseph gone, that role falls to Steve.”

... ...

Tony is the one to insist that he and Peter meet her for lunch, and even though she and Steve simply planned on staying at the hospital with Pietro as they have for the last few days, Natasha still hesitates before agreeing. Steve is the one to reassure her about going, though, at the very least so she can catch Tony and Peter up on everything Yelena had told them, so Natasha has them pick her up and head to her apartment so they can order in. She needed to go back to pack a bag, anyway, and she’d prefer being somewhere private if she’s going to explain everything that’s happened, especially since she knows that her cousins (mostly Tony) will be quick to share their own opinions.

“You should’ve placed bets,” Tony quips, taking a gulp of his wine as he shakes is head. “Of all the news you could’ve shared, I never would’ve guessed all of _that_.”

Natasha feels her lips twitch into a smirk despite herself, and on the couch beside her, even Peter lets out a chuckle. “Not to downplay everything else,” he chimes in, leaning forward to grab another slice of pizza out of the box, “but her explanation for Joseph disappearing is kind of the only reason you need to believe this Yelena lady.”

Natasha breathes out a laugh. “That was one of my first thoughts, too,” she admits. “It’s definitely a more fitting explanation than him disappearing.”

“I think it clears up a lot about Aunt Melina, too,” Tony points out. He tips his head back, draining the last of his wine, and leans forward with his elbow on his knee as he sets his empty glass on the coffee table. “We always found it odd that she left Russia so quickly, but if this Ivan guy found out that she was trying to get Alia away from him, she could’ve fled like Joseph did. And are we just going to ignore the fact that we now know _two_ psychopaths named Ivan? I told you the name gave off classic evil villain vibes.”

Peter raises his eyebrows, pointing at Tony as if he may genuinely be onto something with that, and Natasha doesn’t bother fighting off her smirk this time as she shakes her head at them.

“Speaking of which,” Tony adds, his expression turning a little more serious, “did we know that Ivan Vanko and Hela were so chummy?”

Natasha pauses. “I didn’t realize they were,” she admits, sharing a glance with Peter. “Sam and Bucky have the NYPD watching Hela and they never mentioned someone seeing the both of them together.”

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t know if they’ve actually met up, but when I went poking around on the cameras at the club the other night, I caught him texting her the whole evening. Then I did a little more digging through the security feeds at other Stark establishments, and it turns out they’ve been texting for months. _Five_ months to be exact,” he adds, and Natasha sits up a little straighter, going back through the weeks in her head. She knows that timeframe is familiar, but Peter chimes in before she can place why.

“Five months?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing. “You mean, right when Joseph went missing?”

Tony nods. “I didn’t look at anything further back than that, but something tells me it’s been going on for a while.”

“Did you notice if they were texting in the evenings?” Natasha asks.

Tony arches an eyebrow as he sits back against the couch, considering this, then tips his head in a nod. “Yeah. I mean, I think they would text at different times, too, but most of the recent timestamps were usually in the evening and probably continued on after Ivan left the premises.” He gives her a look. “Do you want to know the specific dates?”

Natasha nods. “Specifically, I want to know if they line up with the nights there were busted deals, or the night of Wanda’s drive-by and Pietro’s shooting.”

Tony blinks, surprised, then mutters under his breath. “ _Shit._ I didn’t think of that.” He shakes his head. “Yeah, I’ll get those timestamps to you, and I’m betting they’ll match.”

Natasha just hums, taking another gulp of her wine as Peter catches her gaze, forehead creased in thought. If he’d been planning on saying anything, though, he’s cut off by Natasha’s phone ringing atop the coffee table, the screen flashing with an unknown number. Natasha pauses, glancing at Tony before reaching over to pick it up.

“Natasha,” a voice says as soon as Natasha’s swiped to answer the call, and she doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that she recognizes Yelena on the other end of the line. Judging by the woman’s tone, Natasha is betting it’s _worse_. “You need to come with me,” she adds quickly, before Natasha can even start to ask what’s going on.

Natasha’s grip tightens on the stem of her wine glass. “Go where?” she asks, eyes flitting between Tony and Peter as alarm crosses their expressions.

“I convinced Yuri to let me grab you and take you to him myself before he puts a bullet in your family’s heads to get to you.” Yelena’s voice is hushed, tight, and Natasha swallows lightly, her chest suddenly feeling tighter. There’s something daunting about her tone that Natasha knows she’s not just imagining. “Make sure your family doesn’t follow you or they _will_ be killed. Yuri won’t leave anything up to chance. You need to act as if you don’t know me and stay quiet when we grab you or he’ll know. Understood?”

“You can guarantee he won’t come after anyone else?” Natasha clarifies, glancing away when Peter flinches, eyes widening at her words.

“I can guarantee it,” she promises. “Having you will be enough of a distraction for Yuri, but we need to act quickly and carefully.” She pauses and this time, her voice is even lower, almost pleading. “He won’t be walking away with you still alive, and as long as _he’s_ alive, he’ll keep coming for you. We only get one chance.”

... ...

It’d taken some convincing to get Wanda away from their brother’s bedside, but Pietro thought she needed a break from being in the hospital with him all week.

Well, more specifically, he said _both_ of his siblings needed some fresh air that didn’t involve tracking down stalkers in abandoned building, and he only barely bothered to cover up that sentiment with asking them to get him his usual order from his favorite Mexican place almost halfway across the city. Steve knows that they don’t _really_ need to humor. His brother will be discharged soon enough, maybe even as early as this evening, his doctor said, so it’s not as if he’ll be stuck eating hospital food for much longer.

Still, Steve has always been a sucker when it comes to his siblings, and he’s sure Wanda will be more willing to leave their brother for a little while if they’re going out to grab something for him, especially since Bucky offers to stay behind with Pietro.

“So, are you going to share whatever theory has been stirring in your head since this morning?” Wanda asks, and Steve turns to look at her beside him in the passenger seat when they come to a red light. She gives him a little grin, reaching over to rub her thumb over his forehead. “You look just like Dad when you’re thinking hard.”

Steve exhales a chuckle. Right. Sometimes he still forgets how easily Wanda can read people, especially her own family.

“I don’t know if I’ve got any theories just yet, but I was thinking of what Nat said earlier, about someone stealing from Howard. How come I never heard of that?”

“Probably because it happened so long ago, when Howard was still in the early stages of getting his legitimate businesses off the ground,” his sister muses. “Pietro and I were still toddlers. I don’t think it’s a secret, though. I think it’s not brought up because mentioning it still upsets Howard, even to this day.”

Steve looks forward again as the light turns green. “Do you know the story?” he asks.

Wanda shakes her head. “Not in detail, but I think the general story of it is that someone was stealing some of Howard’s work and selling it under the table to potential competitors. Blueprints and codes, and I think a few prototypes, too. But it stopped as soon as Howard cracked down on operations within the Family.”

“Which likely meant it was an inside job,” Steve guesses. “But Howard never found out who it was?”

“No,” his sister replies, her voice thoughtful as she adds, “and honestly, I don’t think he ever had any suspects, either. He and Dad still look into it every now and then, even now, and I’ve heard Dad talk to Howard about him being convinced that it had to have been someone high up in the Families if they had that kind of access. Plus, before it all started happening, anyone that wasn’t just a soldier wasn’t heavily tracked.” Steve presses his lips together, and his sister must notice because she asks, “You have a guess?”

“Do you think it could be someone part of the families?” he asks, and though his eyes are on the road, he still catches it in his peripheral as Wanda pulls back slightly.

“You mean, someone like Hela?” she asks, her voice soft, but somehow her question seems to ring out in the quiet of the car.

Steve shakes his head. “Not Hela. Well, she definitely can’t be ruled out as a suspect,” he amends, swallowing lightly as he contemplates his words. The more he runs through them in his thoughts, though, the more and more likely they make sense. “She could be capable of it, but it would be suspicious if she was seen around Stark establishments and especially down at Howard’s startups, and she would’ve still been in high school back then. My guess is that it had to have been someone involved with Stark Industries.”

“Someone like Anton,” Wanda says, and he can hear it in his sister’s voice that it isn’t a question.

“Yeah. Someone exactly like Anton,” Steve agrees, glancing in the rearview mirror after turning onto an empty back street, and he feels his body tense at what he catches in the reflection. “ _Shit_ ,” he mutters, stepping on the gas, but he’s a second too late to speed away from the car that slams into them from behind.


	6. part six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hotel that Yuri’s men take her to is one of the few in New York that her uncle hasn’t managed to buy out, which Natasha is willing to bet isn’t a coincidence on their part. That’s likely the only reason they were able to slip under the Family’s radar for so long, though the place itself is by no means modest – and, not for the first time, Natasha knows it’d been the right call to follow Yelena’s advice to not have Tony follow her when she was going to be grabbed.
> 
> Judging just from the number of men posted along the hallways on the way to the suite, Natasha knows her family would’ve been outgunned on their own, even with every capo and soldier available on such short notice. Having the entire Family and their men will give them the advantage.
> 
> Just as long as Natasha can hold out until they find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY HERE! The last part of the mafia 'verse!!
> 
> I initially thought this was going to take me 1-1.5 months tops to finish, but in true Chanty fashion, it took twice that long... three months later, and we're finally at the end! I'm excited and a little nervous to get to the big reveals, and I'm warning you now that this is my first genuine attempt at writing action sequences of this kind, but I'm really happy of how this chapter and this whole story turned out and I hope you darlings are, too! I had so much fun with this 'verse, and it's definitely the closest of anything I've written to the kinds of stories I want to tell in my original works. If you liked this story overall (I know there was a lot of room for improvement!) then I think you may like the stories I've got in store as an author!
> 
> Thank you darlings for all of your support and enthusiasm!

“I must admit, I was beginning to doubt if I’d ever get the satisfaction of having a Rogers on his knees. Of course,” Anton muses, sliding both hands lazily into his pockets, “I’d always pictured it to be Joseph. Maybe Pietro. But I suppose you look enough like both of them to suffice.”

Steve clenches his jaw, eyes flickering to Wanda kneeling beside him in the middle of what seems to be an empty warehouse. Honestly, Steve wouldn’t be surprised if it’s exactly that. The restaurant he and Wanda had been about to pick up food from is near the harbor, and Steve knows that Howard Stark just bought a few shipment facilities in this area from a business going bankrupt. He mentioned they were about to break ground on this site, too, which means all of the buildings would’ve already been cleaned out and fenced off from the public, and since this place is going to be the new site for another Stark Industries building, it would make sense that Anton would have access to it.

“And _you_ , my dear,” Anton continues, turning to Wanda, and Steve feels his entire body stiffen as Anton reaches down to grasp at Wanda’s throat, forcing her to tip her chin up to meet his stare. Her wrists are tied behind her back, probably just as tightly as Steve’s are, but her arms still wiggle as she struggles against the knot, twisting her body away from Anton as best as she can. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to get rid of you as well. If I thought you would actually stay quiet, I would’ve kept your pretty face for myself.”

Wanda narrows her eyes up at him in a glare. “I would have begged for you to kill me instead.”

“I thought you were smart enough not to show your hand.” Anton releases her throat with a shove, nearly knocking her over, and Steve grits his teeth together. “Since it seems worse than death for you, I might just change my mind. Kill your beloved brother in front of you then keep you out of sight for a while, just for my amusement.”

“I’m all for that plan,” Ivan chimes in, squatting down beside Wanda and brushing her hair from her face, glass shards from the shattered back windshield of the car still threaded through the wild strands. He grasps her chin with his fingers, flashing his teeth in a dangerous smile. “What do you think, _princess?_ Should we have a little fun?”

“That’s enough,” Steve practically growls. “You’re not touching her.”

“Unless it’s over your dead body?” Anton guesses. “Because if that’s what you’re waiting for, it’s about to be arranged.”

“You’re not touching her, _period_ ,” Steve snaps, only barely keeping his voice from shaking, every muscle in his body going taut. He’s pissed. He’s _fucking pissed_ , and he knows that Anton can see it in his eyes because there’s a fleeting flash of alarm in his eyes before he blinks, smug once more.

It doesn’t fool Steve, though. Anton might’ve taken his gun, and he might have Steve on his knees with his hands tied, but the man still feels threatened by him.

“You’re not in any position to be making threats,” Ivan spits out at Steve, practically sneering. “But what else would I expect? You Rogers feel like you own the fucking world. Howard barely even blinks in my direction all these years and yet, you step in and he serves his precious niece up to you on a silver platter, just because you’re Joseph’s boy.”

Steve curls his fists even tighter, somehow, almost tight enough that his fingernails practically break through his own skin. “Therein lies your problem,” Steve replies, and some small, selfish part of him relishes in the obvious annoyance flickering in Ivan’s expression at how calm his voice is, almost nonchalant. No doubt the guy thinks it only proves his belief that Steve feels like he’s entitled. “Maybe if you stopped treating women like playthings, he might start to consider you as someone worth acknowledging.”

Ivan half-shoves his hand away from Wanda, just as Anton had, and grabs the front of Steve’s shirt with his fist, hauling him onto his feet as he practically growls in his face.

Steve blinks back at him, jaw ticking, but he manages to keep his expression composed. Which of course only pisses Ivan off even more.

“You think you can just swoop in and take your daddy’s place on top?” Ivan demands. “You think you’ve got everyone fooled?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Steve hitches his mouth up ever so slightly in a smirk. “I think being head of the Family already speaks for itself. Not that you’d know what that kind of respect is like considering Howard barely considers you one of his soldiers.”

Ivan grits his teeth. “I’m the only one who isn’t too big of a coward to be scared off by Stark’s made up rules. _That’s_ the real reason he doesn’t get in my way.”

“You’re a liability,” Steve counters. “You think my father is the only reason I get any respect? _Your_ father is the only reason you haven’t been cut off.”

A growl rips of Ivan’s throat. “You little—”

“Calm down, boy!” Anton barks, yanking Ivan back by his jacket, and Ivan shoves Steve back before shrugging his father’s hand off of him, still gritting his teeth. “This is why you get sloppy. He’s trying to rile you up and you’re falling for it.”

Steve holds back a grunt of discomfort as his knees hit the ground again, his body very nearly swaying back from the force of Ivan’s shove, but he manages to catch his balance at the last second. Anton is in Ivan’s face now, his words coming out in a low hiss as he says something to Ivan under his breath, and Steve takes the moment of distraction to turn to Wanda once more. He hadn’t wanted to risk more than just a few quick glances, wanting to avoid drawing any more attention onto her. It’s already obvious to Anton and Ivan that the only real advantage they have over Steve is his sister, and likewise for Wanda, but actually _showing_ that weakness is even worse.

He was worried that she might’ve been more banged up from the crash than he initially thought, and now that he has the time to look for any injuries, he notices a fresh scrape on her arm, probably from when Anton dragged her from the wreckage. But it isn’t bleeding, nor does it seem all that deep, so he won’t worry over it right now.

What _does_ worry him, though, is the fact that Wanda is still squirming against her restraints. It’s subtle enough that Ivan and Anton probably won’t notice, but Steve does, and for a moment he thinks that maybe she’s in discomfort because of how tightly the rope could be knotted around her wrists—but then he catches a glimpse of something shifting behind her back. The slim, black metal is hidden by Wanda’s blouse at an awkward angle with the way her wrists are tied together, but he recognizes it in an instant.

Bucky’s knife.

... ...

The hotel that Yuri’s men take her to is one of the few in New York that her uncle hasn’t managed to buy out, which Natasha is willing to bet isn’t a coincidence on their part. That’s likely the only reason they were able to slip under the Family’s radar for so long, though the place itself is by no means modest, and Natasha isn’t surprised when they lead her onto the elevator reserved for the residential suites at the top. And he’d probably booked out the entire top floor, too, not simply for his men but for the sake of discretion as well – and, not for the first time, Natasha knows it’d been the right call to follow Yelena’s advice to not have Tony follow her when she was going to be grabbed.

Judging just from the number of men posted along the hallways on the way to the suite, Natasha knows her family would’ve been outgunned on their own, even with every capo and soldier available on such short notice. Having the entire Family and their men will give them the advantage.

Just as long as Natasha can hold out until they find her.

Yelena has barely glanced in her direction, her composed expression perfectly in place, and Natasha has been careful to keep her own gaze appropriately alarmed considering she was just coerced into the back of a van off of the street without any explanation. If she comes off too unaffected, they may realize that she’d been expecting this; but she can’t come off too affected, either, considering it would be just as suspicious for someone so high up in a mafia to act as if this is her first ever time in this kind of situation.

Which it isn’t, though both other times had been part of her plan, so it really didn’t matter how unaffected she appeared to be when she’d had the upper hand from the beginning. This time is far different, and if Natasha had any less of a poker face, she wouldn’t stand a chance at making Yuri believe she’s entirely in the dark.

Yelena produces a keycard from her pocket as they reach the double doors of the suite, unlocking them, and then two men draw them open from inside, revealing a large sitting room with wide, glass walls overlooking the city.

And, lounging on the couch in the center of the suite, is Yuri Petrovich.

Natasha had already known who he was before Yelena had explained their connection. He may live in a different country, but his mob has associates in New York, so the Family has always kept tabs on them. Even without that reason, her uncle would’ve insisted on it, anyway, simply because of their reputation.

And because of _her_ , she realizes. Just as Yelena had said, whether or not Natasha truly _is_ related to him isn’t relevant; the possibility of it alone would’ve been enough for her and her mother to be on their radar to begin with, and _that_ would’ve been enough for Uncle Howard to view the threat of the Petrovich mob coming after them as real.

“Natasha,” he greets, his smile almost charming, and his men usher her further into the room as they close the doors behind her. “I’m glad that you can join us.”

Her lips curve into the ghosts of a smirk. “I couldn’t exactly decline the invitation.”

He waves her over with two fingers, and she takes a moment to let her gaze slide over the room. Partly to assess where his men are posted throughout the suite, a move he would’ve expected her to pull, but also to take note of where Yelena has come to stand behind the couch Yuri is seated on. Distant enough as to not draw suspicion yet close enough to have an advantage over him from behind, though it also puts her in everyone’s line of fire, so the chances of her actually being able to make the first move are slim.

Not without a distraction, at least.

Natasha walks around the couch opposite of Yuri, perching herself on the cushion, and he leans forward to grab a bottle of vodka out of a bucket of ice on the table. “Care to join me?” he asks, pouring the alcohol into two shot glasses. “I know it’s not a traditional drink to share for first meetings, but I have a feeling you and I have the same taste.”

She lets cautious curiosity flicker in her eyes when he looks at her. “That’s quite an assumption”

“Let’s just say, I recognize a kindred spirit when I see one,” he replies, sliding one of the glasses over, and she eyes him skeptically as she picks it up. “After all, we already have quite a lot in common.”

“Because I’m of Russian blood?” she asks. She knows it could be dangerous to try and coax the truth out of him like this, but the secretive, smug edge to his smirk only widens, his eyes flashing, and Natasha can tell that he finds her choice of words more ironic than suspicious. “If you know this about me, you’ll also know I was raised here.”

He hums, lifting his glass instead of replying, and Natasha tips her head back as he does to drain her shot. It’ll take more than this to get her drunk or even buzzed, but she still needs to be careful if he insists on more.

“I do know this,” Yuri finally answers, setting the vodka aside as he stares back at her. “I know quite a bit about you, in fact.”

“And I suppose the reason for that is why you’ve come all the way here to pay me a visit in person,” Natasha muses. “Or is this how you woo all the Russian girls?”

“Woo?” He shakes his head. “No, that would be rather inappropriate, though I don’t suppose Melina Stark has given you a clue as to why.”

Natasha allows her irritation to flit across her expression, her body stiffening in annoyance at his tone, though the satisfied curl of his lips tells her that she’s come off as alarmed as she’d intended. “If we have as much in common as you say, then you’ll know that as adept as I am at playing games, I don’t particularly enjoy them,” Natasha replies, letting her casual tone slip from her voice as she narrows ever so slightly. “I would hardly consider us kindred spirits simply because we’re both of Russian descent.”

Yuri raises his eyebrows slightly, almost seeming impressed by her bluntness. “Perhaps we don’t have everything in common, because I do enjoy a good game of watching others squirm. But since I admire your boldness, I’ll return it: our Russian descent isn’t all that we share, _dear sister_. We are blood by its very definition.”

She tilts her head, gauging his expression. It’s clear that he believes his words, just as Yelena had said, and she lets anger flit across her face. “And I should take your word?”

“If I had the time, I would’ve brought Melina here to tell you the story herself,” Yuri replies, his smirk widening as he lounges back against the couch. “But since she isn’t with us at the moment, I’ll give you the courtesy that she should’ve given you and tell you exactly why Melina Vostokoff fled to America on your father’s arm. Of course, if I’d been accused of having an affair with my best friend’s husband, I wouldn’t be too keen on sharing that story with my supposed daughter,” he adds with a shake of his head.

“An affair?” Natasha questions.

“I believe you’re intelligent, dear sister, and the talk of you within the underground of New York would support my belief,” Yuri muses. “I know you must have wondered what would’ve compelled your mother to marry a man who had been on vacation and leave her country on such an impulsive whim. Sure, it makes for quite a romantic story, but you know deep down that isn’t the truth.” Yuri leans forward again, his elbows resting on his knees as he holds Natasha’s stare, eyes flashing dangerously. “The reason that Melina acclimated so quickly to her husband’s lifestyle is because she was already familiar with it herself. It was a life she shared with her best friend Alia back in Russia.”

“Which is supposedly your mother,” Natasha guesses, keeping her voice dry and unamused. “Alia Petrovich.”

He flashes his teeth in a wide grin. “Formerly known as _Natalia_ Romanov. Quite similar to your own name, isn’t it, Natasha?”

This time, Natasha’s surprise is genuine as she pulls back slightly. He reaches into his pocket, making Natasha’s body stiffen in alarm, but rather than a weapon, he produces a thin necklace and tosses it in her direction, and she catches it in her palm. The charm is a slim bar, engraved in script—her own name, she realizes.

“When my mother passed, this was found among her possessions. At first, I believed it was simply hers. Natasha is a variant of Natalia, after all.” He shakes his head, and there’s something in his voice, something in his _eyes_ , that has Natasha nearly holding her breath. She isn’t simply feigning ignorance for his sake; she can feel her blood begin to hum in her veins, as if anticipating his next words. “But then I realized that it wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for _you_ , my dear sister,” he tells her, and Natasha nearly risks a glance at Yelena, wanting to see if this is a surprise to her as well. Natasha is willing to bet that it is. “Melina never had an affair. _Our mother_ was the one that did.”

... ...

Steve clenches and unclenches his jaw, careful to keep his anger in his expression even as he feels relief unfurl in his chest as Wanda finally slices through the knot around her wrists. She catches the rope in her fingers before it can go slack, hand closing tightly around the handle of the slim, black knife. The one that Ivan had evidently missed when he’d patted her down. Considering her arms have been drawn behind her back this whole time, Steve is guessing that she had the holster strapped under her blouse. Bucky’s knife is thin enough that it would have still been decently concealed despite the tapered fit of the material, but also, they’d been lucky that Ivan hadn’t done a thorough check.

He probably thought he hadn’t needed to; Wanda is as adept with a gun as the rest of the Family, but she isn’t typically armed.

It seems that Bucky has taken care of that himself.

“ _Enough_ ,” Anton finally barks, shaking his head at Ivan before turning back to Steve. “Yet another example of how you Rogers have been a thorn in my side all these years.”

“Considering I didn’t even know who you were until a few months ago, it’s rather an impressive accomplishment to be under your skin for years,” Steve retorts. Anton may not be as reactive as Ivan, but Steve still knows how to piss Anton off. He’s pretty damn full of himself, and considering how long Joseph Rogers has known him, it’d be a definite bruise to Anton’s ego to know he hadn’t been worth mentioning, especially since Steve had already known most of the other Family members when he took his father’s place.

As long as Anton and Ivan are too focused on being pissed at Steve to notice that Wanda’s freed herself, all she’ll have to do is hold off until the right time.

Though Steve doesn’t know how easily that’ll come, if at all. It may just be Anton and Ivan inside the warehouse with them, but Steve knew he’d had a few men with him during the crash. Likely the handful of capos and soldiers loyal to him rather than to Howard, because there’s no way they’d go along with this kind of plan otherwise. It’d put their asses on the line, too, and Steve would hope that they’re sensible enough to know that both Anton and Ivan would throw them under the bus if Howard got wind of it.

Anton’s jaw ticks. “I’ve known you the least, but I’m pretty damn sure I’ll get the most enjoyment out of putting a bullet through your head.”

“Because I walked in and took the seat at the head of the Families that you’ve wanted all along?” Steve asks. “Or because I know you were the one stealing from Howard?”

It’s something Steve had a gut feeling about being true when it’d clicked into place in his mind, but the flash in Anton’s eyes is all the confirmation he needs. He manages to school his expression back into annoyance only a second later, but it’s more in vain than anything else. He knows Steve had caught his initial reaction.

And maybe that’s why he doesn’t completely deny it like Steve had still been expecting. “And what makes you say that?” Anton asks, still feigning annoyance.

“Howard is a cautious man when it comes to his legitimate businesses, and especially when it comes to Stark Industries,” Steve points out. “I can only imagine how much stricter he was when Stark Industries was getting off of the ground, and operating out of only one small building with a handful of employees should’ve meant he’d have no trouble keeping everything locked up tight. Not unless someone Howard trusted enough to give complete access without his monitoring was the one stealing,” Steve adds.

Anton’s eyes flash. “I’ve known Howard for years. He wouldn’t believe your word over mine.”

“He would if it made sense, which it does,” Steve counters. “Howard’s loyal, but not blindly loyal. And considering your son’s recklessness puts the Family’s ass in some kind of jeopardy almost every day, he’d have no problems cutting both of you out of the picture the second he gets a decent reason. Even if your secret dies with me, he’d still cut you off for trying to get rid of Pietro and Wanda, too.” This time Anton doesn’t attempt to hide his surprise, and in his peripheral, Steve catches his sister flinch, genuinely shocked.

Anton smirks, but the smugness from his eyes is gone. “Those incidents weren’t my doing,” he argues.

“Maybe not directly,” Steve counters. “It _was_ an Asgard car spotted near both of those scenes at the time, and by every one of the Family’s busted deals and shipments, too. But if we dig just a little deeper, it’d be easy to find out that you and Ivan were the ones goading Hela into doing your dirty work.”

“She doesn’t need anyone to help fuel her crazy.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Steve agrees. “Which makes her a convenient person to pin the blame on, especially since the Family knows she has it out for my father. Dad was getting a lot closer to your secret. You knew he’d share his theories with his kids, too, so you needed a quick and permanent fix. Then my dad goes missing and you get your chance.”

Anton narrows his eyes. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” he questions, but there’s no real threat in his voice, and Steve knows his assumptions are right.

Before Steve can respond, though, Ivan snaps, “I’m getting sick of all this talking.” He draws his gun from the pocket inside his jacket, giving Steve a glimpse of his own gun hooked into Ivan’s holster at his hip. “Maybe we should test your theory of this secret dying with you,” he snarls. Steve simply blinks back at him, but then he catches Ivan’s gaze shift back to Wanda and Steve’s shoulders go rigid. Ivan smirks. “Or better yet, maybe we’ll start with your sister first. You won’t feel like such a smug ass then, huh?”

Ivan squats down and grasps Wanda by her neck, forcing her chin to tip up as he starts to dig his fingers into her throat—

And then a screech from outside. It’s muffled but unmistakable, and _close_. Maybe no more than a few dozen feet away.

_Tires._

Ivan and Anton’s heads snap around toward the doors at the other end of the warehouse. “What the hell is that?” Ivan growls out, but Anton lets out a low hiss for him to shut up, one hand already reaching into his jacket for his gun as he takes a few steps closer, as if ready to head outside to check himself.

There are voices being raised from outside; the men Anton kept posted out there to keep watch start to shout over one another, their words muffled but the alarm ringing clear in their tones.

And then two harsh cracks rip through the air – _gunshots_ – right before the sound of metal slamming together, colliding in a hard crash.

“ _Shit_ ,” Ivan mutters, starting to get up, but then Wanda slips her arms out from behind her almost in a blink, knife in hand, and Ivan lets out a sudden groan as she thrusts the blade into him. He hisses, his hand going slack around his gun as he staggers back, and then Wanda is shoving him forward and sending him stumbling back into Anton as his weight knocks them both over. Another blink, and Wanda is lunging across the small distance, on her knees beside Steve and shoving him over as another shot goes off.

Steve groans, a jolt of pain shooting through his shoulder right before his side hits the ground, but he barely has a second to register it before Wanda is down on one knee in front of him, her body half-angled away from him just as Anton has gotten back onto his feet, lifting his gun to aim it in their direction.

For a fleeting second, Steve’s heart slams to stop against his ribcage—

And then Anton’s face twists into a sneer as he spits out, “You’re too much of a princess to pull that trigger,” at Wanda, and Steve’s eyes snap onto his sister. With the way he’d fallen and the way Wanda’s back is turned toward him, he hadn’t noticed the gun in her hand, pointed right back at Anton.

 _Ivan’s gun_ , Steve realizes. His gaze slides down and, sure enough, he finds Bucky’s knife still curled tightly in her other hand, only a little bit of blood actually smudged onto the blade from how quickly she’d pulled it out of Ivan’s chest.

“Go ahead, prove me right,” Anton goads. “You don’t have the balls to—”

He’s cut off as another crack rips through the air, and then he’s shouting, staggering down onto one knee, his gun falling from his hand and clattering onto the ground as he clutches at his shoulder with a hiss. Wanda shifts her body, arm swinging toward Ivan as he’s in the middle of staggering back up to his feet, and then another shot goes off and groans out, “fuck!” and clutches at his leg, his body hitting the ground once more. Wanda whirls back toward Steve, bending over him, and though the blade manages to nick his skin in her haste to slice the ropes from around his wrist, he barely notices. After getting grazed with one of Anton’s bullets, a little cut is hardly going to bother him.

Wanda is on her feet before Steve is, gun aimed at Anton once more as she gets her boot on his gun where it fell, sliding it back before he can attempt to retrieve it. Steve half-lunges across the small distance to Ivan, still clutching at his leg where Wanda shot him, and then Steve snatches his gun out of Ivan’s holster and aims it at him.

He turns his head, keeping Ivan in his peripheral as he looks at Wanda with his lips twitching at the corners. “Good aim.”

Wanda’s eyes twinkle. “I’m Clint’s best student for a reason,” she replies as the doors at the other end of the warehouse are thrown open, and then both of their gazes are whirling in that direction just as Bucky and Sam and a few officers burst through.

Steve very nearly slackens in relief, but he manages to keep his gun aimed at Ivan until one of the officers reaches him, producing a pair of handcuffs.

Wanda lowers her gun, too, just as Bucky reaches her, one hand reaching out to cup her cheek as his eyes dart over her almost wildly. A moment later, he exhales a breath, the tension ebbing from his body as he seems to confirm for himself that she isn’t hurt, and then he’s reaching down with his other hand to curl his fingers around hers where they’re still gripping the handle of the knife. _His_ knife, stained with Ivan’s blood. His eyes glint. “Atta girl,” he murmurs, and then he’s drawing her close, slanting his lips over hers. Steve watches as Wanda’s body _finally_ eases in relief, very nearly melting into Bucky as she sways forward, and he hooks an arm around her to keep them both steady.

Steve turns away to give them a moment, and then Sam is beside him, reaching up to touch the frayed line of his jacket where the bullet grazed him.

“Just a scratch?” Sam asks, one eyebrow arched as his lip hitches at the corner, and, despite everything, Steve breathes out a laugh.

“Barely a paper cut,” Steve returns, and Sam just shakes his head. “You guys got here pretty fast.”

Sam nods, gaze shifting onto Anton as two officers are snapping cuffs around his wrists and starting to lead him out of the warehouse. “We’ve had a tracker on Anton’s car for a few days now and we’ve been tailing him at a decent distance. The second it got cut off in the crash, our asses were on the move.”

Steve nods, but there’s something in Sam’s eyes that makes him pause. “What?” he asks, aware of the way Bucky and Wanda pull away from each other in his peripheral as Bucky tugs her closer to Steve’s side, his lips twitching into a grin.

“We’ve got something for you,” Bucky answers, nodding his head toward the doors.

Steve catches his sister’s curious gaze, exchanging a look before Bucky is gently urging her forward with a hand on the small of her back, and Steve follows the two of them out of the warehouse with Sam. There are already several patrol cars parked along the fence that’d been put up by the construction company, officers in the midst of loading Ivan and Anton and their men into the back seats, and what few pedestrians happen to be walking in the area are already starting to pause to try and see what’s happening.

It isn’t until Steve’s gaze finds a familiar car at the end of the fence, though, that he realizes why Sam and Bucky had been grinning so hard.

_Dad._

... ...

 _Our mother_.

Natasha’s fingers tighten around the necklace in her hand, so much so that she can feel the charm starting to dig into her palm, but she barely flinches. Her stare stays fixed on Yuri, searching his face for any small shift in his expression, any small twitch or tell that may give away the fact that he’s bluffing—but that smirk sits perfectly in place and the smug gleam in his eyes never wavers. Rationally, she knows that this doesn’t automatically mean he’s telling the truth. _She_ has a pretty damn good poker face, too, and she can count on one hand the number of times someone had picked up on it when she was bluffing. Even then, they hadn’t been entirely sure if she was actually lying or not.

But she can feel her chest tightening, and her instinct tells her that something about his story makes sense.

She’s always found her parents’ story odd, and though Yelena’s explanation would’ve cleared a lot of it, Natasha knew something was still off. Something was _missing._ Why would her mother join a mob so that she, Joseph, and Alia could keep each other safe and yet sleep with the man her best friend married? The very same one she wanted to protect Alia from? And Natasha _knows_ she looks like her father, like her Uncle Howard and Tony and Peter. It’s been said countless times that she has the Stark stamp to her.

Belatedly, her conversation with Steve comes back to her and how he apologized for getting upset when she hid “Sarah Rogers” from him. He told her he would’ve done the same thing, would’ve waited before telling Natasha something that could upset her because it was about her mother.

 _I just want to be sure_ , he told her.

This was what he’d been hesitant to tell her. Maybe he didn’t put together the exact truth, but he’d already suspected that her mother wasn’t her _birth_ mother.

“I suppose you expect me to just take your word for it,” Natasha replies, managing to keep her voice steady despite the way her heart is starting to pound against her ribcage.

Yuri sits up a little straighter, lifting his eyebrows. “Perhaps I should have invited Melina to join us and tell you herself.”

Natasha lets out a light, almost nonchalant him in reply, even as her fist curls even tighter around the necklace still in her hand, and she knows she’s managed to catch him off guard by her lack of reaction to his threat because there’s a fleeting shift of uncertainty in his eyes. Then he blinks and that smug, knowing gleam is back in place.

“I’m surprised you didn’t consider it to begin with, after going through all this trouble to come here to convince me of the truth in person.” Natasha quirks an eyebrow at him. “Unless, of course, you have another reason for coming to an entirely different country to meet someone who could only _supposedly_ be your family.”

He nearly bares his teeth in a dangerous grin. “You really don’t enjoy games, do you, dear sister?” he drawls. “It’s almost as if you’re trying to rush this along. Of course, if I were you, I would be eager to get to my date tonight as well. With Rogers, correct?” He reaches for the bottle of vodka again and then leans forward to retrieve Natasha’s shot glass, his eyes glinting as he catches her stare. “Like mother, like daughter, after all. I’m told that our mother was quite fond of Joseph Rogers. I’m sure I would’ve heard all about him if not for the way my father got particularly violent whenever Joseph Rogers was ever breathed. It’s quite tragic that he went missing a few months ago, isn’t it?”

Natasha studies his expression for a moment, and, possibly for the first time since he began speaking, she knows he’s bluffing.

His tone is suggestive, and _threatening_ , wanting her to believe he’s in on the secret of how Joseph Rogers had gone missing, or maybe that he’d been involved somehow.

But he wouldn’t be here if he knew the truth. Even if he’s cold enough not to care about someone planning to kill his own father, Ivan dying while Yuri is overseas won’t make it easy for Yuri to take control of the mob if he makes it back to Russia. Not if there are already more than enough people that want him gone.

Maybe she doesn’t need to stall. Maybe she can distract him herself.

“Oh, you don’t expect me to believe that you listen to the rumors,” Natasha counters, letting her voice lilt in amusement—and, sure enough, there’s a flash of uncertainty in his eyes at her reaction. He slides her shot glass back over and she picks it up, letting a secretive smile curl at her lips. “But I will say this, your acting is quite convincing.”

She downs her shot without waiting for him to finish pouring his, licking her lips, and his jaw ticks. “And here I thought you don’t like playing games.”

Natasha tilts her head, arching an eyebrow. “And what game is it that you think I’m playing?”

Yuri smirks, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “I’m sure it doesn’t do well for your reputation that the head of the Families went missing at all, let alone for this long and without any leads,” he muses. “But there’s no need to keep up pretenses for me.” She simply hums as he sets the bottle of vodka down on the table between them, letting her lips curve into a smug, knowing smirk of her own, not so much as blinking when he holds her stare, and she can see exactly when he realizes that she may not be bluffing.

He blinks twice, working to keep his expression unaffected. “Alright. I’ll humor you, dear sister. If Joseph Rogers hasn’t been missing all this time, where is he?”

Natasha leans in closer to the table between them, nearly perched on the very edge of the couch. “Tell me, _baby brother_ ,” she starts, her smirk widening when she catches the way his jaw ticks, “why I should divulge that when you haven’t even admitted that you’ve come here to kill me. I’ve never even stepped foot in Russia and yet, I’m a threat to you, aren’t I?” She leans in even closer, catching the way Yelena draws closer to Yuri from behind, too, as is protective. “If it’s a choice between you and me, I’m the best bet. A mafia princess to the underground and a Stark princess to the world. I can offer them everything, but you and your father are nothing but liabilities they’re eager to cut out.”

A growl nearly rips from Yuri’s throat, his composure quickly slipping through his fingers. “You think you know everything, don’t you?”

“No,” she replies, her voice dropping to a low, staged whisper. “I only pretend to,” she says, glancing over his shoulder to catch Yelena’s gaze, and the woman gives her a barely discernable nod right before she has her gun up, firing two shots – one each for the two men standing at the doors of the suite.

Natasha doesn’t have to look back to check to see if they hit, nor does she have time to, because just as Yuri starts to turn around, Natasha’s hand wraps around the neck of the bottle of vodka and she’s swinging it hard, slamming it up into Yuri’s jaw with as much force as she can muster at such a close range.

Yuri keels over as Natasha is on her feet, twisting her body around as she flings the bottle toward the two men standing to her left. There are also two more men to her right that could have a chance to shoot at her, but as she gets a running start, she catches a glimpse of the two guys that’d been posted behind Yelena dropping to the floor as she whirls around, gun pointed, so Natasha doesn’t worry about what’s behind her as she sprints forward, dropping to the ground right as one of them manages to get their gun up. He gets a shot off, but Natasha is already sliding across the carpet, swiping her legs under the other guy – the one already staggering back from being hit with the bottle of vodka – before spinning back around and onto her feet, and then she grabs the other guy by his jacket, yanking him down and sending his head cracking against her knee.

She swipes one of their guns out of their hands and whirls around, aiming it at where Yuri had been in the same second that Yelena does—

But Yuri is already up and over the couch and bounding out the suite, the doors slamming closed behind him, and Yelena exhales a curse under her breath as she lowers her gun and catches Natasha’s gaze.

“As soon as he caught me, he knew he’d be outnumbered when it came down to the three of us,” Yelena tells her. “But if the others are still in the hallway when we leave this suite, _we’ll_ be outnumbered. If even half of the men stayed, that’s too much heat for us to take, and there’s no other way out of this suite.”

“Well, if he makes it out of this hotel, he’ll come after both of us and my family, too,” Natasha counters.

Yelena rubs her lips together, considering this for a moment, and then she swears under her breath again. “Let’s go,” she says, and Natasha swallows lightly, crossing the room and meeting Yelena at the door. “Any plan?” she asks.

Despite herself, Natasha lets out a humorless laugh. “Try not to die?”

Yelena nearly cracks a smile. “Your plan sucks,” she retorts, and then they’re both tugging at the handles, throwing the doors open and stepping into the hallway, and Natasha whirls around to stand with her back to Yelena’s as she points her gun at—

“ _Mom_ ,” Natasha breathes out, her heart nearly slamming to a stop against her ribcage as she lowers her gun. Her mother lowers her gun, too, and her composed expression dissolves into relief. Natasha’s eyes flit over her shoulder and down the hallway, her father already lowering his own gun as he makes his way over to them, and then, right in front of the door to the stairwell, Uncle Howard and Nick Fury are watching as Thor and Odin are shoving someone over the threshold and maneuvering him down the stairs.

Yuri.

Natasha nearly sways back on her feet as she feels the relief flood through her, her eyes shifting back to her mother. “You got him?” she asks, even though she already knows the answer. She still wants to hear it, though.

“Yes,” her mother tells her, her voice soft. “If you had waited a few more minutes, we would’ve saved you from all the excitement.”

“She wouldn’t be our daughter if she preferred less excitement,” her father quips, coming to stand beside them. Natasha exhales a sharp, breathy sort of laugh as her mother reaches for her, drawing her close—and though she and her parents have never been the kind to prefer hugs, it’s almost instant, the way she melts into the embrace.

... ...

Wanda must’ve seen their father a split second before Steve had, because just as Steve’s mind is starting to catch up to the fact that that’s him – that his father is _here_ , after being gone for so months – Wanda lets out a shaky, sharp, breathy sound, and then she starts running, quickly crossing the distance to the gate at the corner of the fence as their father gets it open. She throws herself at him in a hug that quite literally knocks him back a few steps, but his arms go around her, too, as his deep laugh fills the air.

Steve takes his time making his way over, feeling himself smile as he watches his father brushes a kiss to Wanda’s hair, murmuring something to her that makes her giggle and press her face into his shoulder. Then his eyes shift, watching through the fence as Pietro gets out of their father’s car and starts heading toward their father and sister. He catches Steve’s gaze, lifting his hand in a wave, and Steve’s smile widens, relieved his brother doesn’t seem any worse for wear considering he just got out of the hospital.

“Bet you didn’t see this coming!” Pietro calls out, and their father lifts his head, his eyes wrinkling into a brighter smile when they land on Steve.

Wanda turns to look over her shoulder at him, too, her eyelashes dotted with tears she hasn’t quite shed yet. His sister’s smile is small and shaky, but beautiful and relieved and so fucking _happy_ , and then she steps back from their father, practically ducking under his arm to squeeze Pietro in a hug the second he’s within her reach.

“Steve,” his father greets, his voice low and gruff. The two of them had never been particularly affectionate with each other, not in the same way his siblings are, but it was never something Steve held any resentment towards him for. His father raised the twins mostly on his own, while Steve didn’t even meet his father until after high school, and anytime they’ve spent together since then, they’ve had the twins as a buffer. He and his father are closer _now_ , but there had still been some lingering space between them.

Still, somehow Steve isn’t all that surprised when his father doesn’t hesitate to grasp at Steve’s shoulder, pulling him in for a hug as well.

Steve blinks, his chest tightening, but he doesn’t miss a beat in returning his father’s embrace. It doesn’t linger quite as long as his hug with Wanda had, but his father still gives him one last sort of squeeze before pulling away, one hand still lingering on Steve’s shoulder.

And this time, Steve _is_ surprised when he catches the cracks in his father’s usually nonchalant expression. Considering who the man is, Steve had always seen his father as formidable and unyielding. Sure, Steve knew firsthand that the man had a soft side for his children, but for the most part, his composure never wavered.

“Welcome home,” Steve tells him, his voice a little rough. “How was your trip?”

His father’s eyes glint. “Good,” he answers simply, and it should be strange, how that one word seems to make the air shift. He turns to Wanda and Pietro as Wanda blinks up at him, her eyes wide and glimmering. “It was _really_ good,” he tells them, the meaning clear in his tone. “But I much prefer to be home.”

“I take it that means you don’t have plans to be anywhere else anytime soon?” Steve asks.

His father squeezes his shoulder firmly, his lips hitching up into a wider smile—and, for a fleeting second, Steve almost sees his own face smiling back at him, making his chest squeeze in a way he hasn’t felt since his mother had passed.

“No,” his father promises, shaking his head once. “I’m right where I need to be.”

“Well, if you ever did decide to take another vacation,” Pietro chimes in, his lips spreading into a wide grin as he glances at Steve, “we can hold down the fort.”

Wanda breathes out a laugh, her smile bright, _proud_ , and when Steve catches his father’s stare once more, he sees the same emotion reflected in his eyes. “I’ve always known that,” he says, and Steve feels his chest squeeze again, his own smile widening because he’s starting to realize that maybe _he_ always had, too.

... ...

Her uncle stays behind at the hotel to handle things with Nick and Odin, and though Uncle Howard asks Natasha if she wants to have a say in what they do with Yuri and his men, she promises her uncle that she won’t come up with something nearly as creative as he can. Besides, she knows that the Family likes to take their time in dealing with anyone that’s threatened one of their own, and Natasha doesn’t want to waste another ounce of her energy on Yuri if she can help it. And she’s willing to bet it will drive him crazy to be told that he’d gone through all of this effort to come after her himself when she doesn’t even want to be there to watch while the Family has their fun with him.

“I know today has been exciting and all, so I thought I’d make one of your favorites,” her father says, and it’s almost instant, the grin that pulls at Natasha’s lips when he slides over a double shot of vodka poured into a wine glass. Part of her wonders if she should find the choice of alcohol ironic, all things considered, but as she picks up the glass, swirling it around as if it were actually wine, she doesn’t think of sharing shots of vodka with Yuri in that hotel suite. Instead, she thinks about the first ever time her father had poured her vodka in a wine glass just like this, when she first moved into this apartment out of college and her parents had come over to help her get settled in.

He’d joked about it being a celebration of both of her heritages, when in reality, they simply hadn’t wanted to open every box until they found her shot glasses.

“How sentimental,” her mother notes, amusement pulling at her own smile.

Her father tips his head, considering this. “I have my moments,” he admits, reaching into his pocket, and Natasha watches as he pulls out the thin, silver necklace that she’d held earlier that night, setting it carefully on the kitchen island between them, his expression softening.

Melina picks it up gently, threading the chain through her fingers and lifting it to let the engraved bar dangle for her to read.

Natasha watches her mother, remembering the way she and Alia— _Natalia_ —had looked in that photograph she and Steve had found among his father’s things. It had to have been taken after Joseph Rogers, Alia, and her mother had joined the mob since Alexi was in the photo, too, and yet, Alia looked content. She looked _happy_ because she was with the people she loved most, and that was enough to make her feel as carefree as she’d looked in that photo, even if her life had been anything but that because of Ivan.

“Is there any truth to that?” Natasha asks gently, nodding at the necklace in her mother’s hand, though it’s not really a question. The expression on both of her parents’ faces is more than enough proof.

Her mother catches her gaze, her smile soft. “Yes,” she answers simply, reaching over to tuck some of Natasha’s hair behind her ear. “You’re my last piece of her.”

Natasha feels something warm tug at her chest, and then she turns to her father. “How did you all meet?”

“Because of Joseph,” her father replies. Natasha lifts her eyebrows slightly in surprise; she hadn’t expected that. “By now, I assume you and Steve both know the truth about him and Alia and your mother?” her father asks.

She nods, glancing at her mother. “We found an old picture of you with some of his things.”

Her mother’s smile widens just a little as she sets the necklace back down, untangling the chain from her fingers. “The three of us had known each other since childhood,” her mother explains. “Alia had the biggest heart and wore it on her sleeve, but that was a dangerous thing in our world. Ivan wanted her the moment he saw her, but it was clear to everyone that Joseph and I were the only ones she cared for. She always blamed herself for Ivan wanting to get rid of Joseph, and she was never the same after he left.”

“Joseph was the reason your uncle and I went to Russia in the first place,” her father adds. “He couldn’t risk going back, but when Howard and Maria were having problems and needed space, Joseph asked Howard and I to go to Russia just to check on his old friends. He never stopped worrying about them, but also, he could tell that Howard needed some objective to keep his mind busy.” Her father’s eyes shift to her mother’s, his lips quirking. “Your mother was actually the one to introduce me to Alia,” he says.

Natasha turns to her mother, her own amusement tugging at her lips. “Really?”

Her mother chuckles. “He and your uncle didn’t quite do a good job at hiding how they studied us at the bar,” her mother tells her. “I didn’t know at the time it was because of Joseph. I just knew that Alia had been having a particularly hard time lately and could use a charming stranger to comfort her.”

“We actually left Russia shortly after, but your mother tracked us down when Alia found out she was pregnant,” her father continues. “She hadn’t been engaged to Ivan by then, and your uncle and I snuck the two of them away. But Ivan was far too possessive to let Alia go, and Howard and I hadn’t been prepared to handle this kind of threat away from home.” His eyebrows furrow, the frustration of the memory flashing in his eyes. “Alexi was able to warn us that Ivan finally found her after Alia had given birth.”

“She wanted your father to take you to keep you safe.” Her mother gives her a small, wry sort of smile. “She wanted me to go with him. Ivan only wanted her. He stopped searching for Joseph because he was no longer in his way, and he wouldn’t care if I was gone, either. If she had come with us, he would’ve stopped at nothing to find her and drag her back. She didn’t want to put anyone through that, and she absolutely didn’t want _you_ to be raised like that, always on the run, hiding. She begged us to save you.”

“The moment we brought you home, Joseph recognized her in your face,” her father says, voice soft. “Everyone says how much you look like me, but you look like her, too. You just have to know where to find it.”

Natasha feels herself smile, feels a warmth fluttering in her chest as she thinks back to the photograph they’d found among Joseph’s things. It’s a little odd to think that she hadn’t recognized her own face in Alia, even when Alia had been so much younger in that picture, but part of her liked that it hadn’t been something so obvious. Her likeness to her birth mother, just like the secret itself, was something you have to know to see—something that makes a difference but doesn’t change everything about Natasha’s life.

It doesn’t change who her mother is. It simply gives her another woman to admire.

“I wish I could’ve met her,” Natasha says quietly, and her father comes around the island, cups the back of Natasha’s neck as he brushes a kiss to her forehead.

He doesn’t say the words – neither of her parents do – but Natasha knows the feeling is mutual. She also knows that there wouldn’t have been a way for that to happen, even if Alia was still alive. Not as long as Ivan was alive, too.

A knock at the door makes her father draw away slightly, glancing at Natasha, and, despite everything, she feels her lips twitch in a grin. The only people other than her parents who have ever had her codes to the apartment before are Uncle Howard and Tony, and neither of them would’ve let themselves in at the lobby only to knock on her front door. Then her father blinks, amusement glinting in his eyes as he realizes who it could be, and she rubs her lips together to fight off a smile as he goes to answer it.

And no, she’s not at all surprised when Steve is in her kitchen a moment later, his gaze finding hers within seconds.

“ _Nat_ ,” he breathes as he crosses the distance to her in a few steps, cupping her face with his hands as his eyes flit over her, checking for himself to see that she’s alright.

Then he exhales a sharp breath, his body easing in relief, and Natasha feels herself smiling as he slants his mouth over hers. The kiss is hard and deep in an instant, and she almost feels herself swaying back atop the barstool with the force of it. He sucks on her bottom lip, thumbs brushing over her cheeks, down the line of her jaw, drawing a soft noise from her throat, and then she hears someone (likely her father) clearing their throat. Steve chuckles as he eases his lips off of hers, parting their kiss and pulling back.

“I’m alright,” she reassures softly, reaching up to wrap her hands around his wrists, giving him a gentle squeeze as if in emphasis.

Over his shoulder, she catches her mother getting up from her barstool, walking toward the threshold of the kitchen – and that’s when she notices Joseph Rogers filling the doorway, reaching for her mother and pulling her into his arms in a hug.

Natasha feels her chest flutter, the warmth of relief at seeing Joseph Rogers alive and _home_ mixing with the bittersweet twinge of knowing what he and her mother are offering each other comfort for. Natasha’s throat tightens a little, her chest tightening, and then Steve is stroking his thumbs over her cheeks in slow, soothing strokes, and her eyes flit up to his. She doesn’t have to ask to know that his father must’ve filled him in on the truth of her and Alia because she can see it in his eyes, just as she knows that the empathy there isn’t just for her. It’s for his father and for her parents, and for Alia, for the hope that they could’ve reunited one day, no matter how slim the chance.

“Come here,” Steve murmurs, pulling his hands from her face so he can wrap his arms around her, drawing her close—and she doesn’t quite realize how _overwhelmed_ she is until her eyes are closed and her face is pressed against his chest, blocking everything else out other than his steady breaths and the soothing circles he rubs over her back.

... ...

It’s late by the time they make it back to his place, but he’s still wide awake as he lays next to Nat in bed. She’d come back with him rather than the two of them crashing at her apartment since they were already there, and he knows it’s because she wanted him to be close to Pietro, just in case. His brother is supposed to be watched for the next few days, anyway, and since Wanda and Pietro had already taken to sleeping at his brownstone rather than their own apartments for the last few days, Steve doesn’t see a point in switching things up. It’s hardly a bother to have them under his roof, and after having the place all to himself for so long, he likes that it feels less empty these days.

He starts to slip out of bed when he feels Natasha reach for him, her fingers curling around his forearm as he’s sitting up, and he smiles down at her in the dark. Even though he’s not tired, he knows _she_ is, because she’d passed out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Still, part of him had expected her to wake up as soon as he moved.

She’s always been attuned to him like that.

“I’m just going to drink something warm to help me sleep,” he tells her softly, leaning over to brush his lips to her cheek, running a hand over her side through the duvet.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asks, her voice heavy and a little raspy with sleep, and he feels his smile widen as he peers down at her in the dark. She’s practically still half asleep, but he’s not surprised at all that she still offers to get up with him. He knows she had quite a day, but she knows _he_ did, too.

“No, it’s okay,” he reassures, sliding his lips lower, pressing a kiss to the spot along her jaw that always, always makes her shiver, and she makes this little noise from the back of her throat. “ _Sleep_ ,” he murmurs against her skin, and she chuckles softly, barely above a whisper, as she curls into herself a little more and hums in reply.

He clicks his door shut softly behind him when he steps out into the hallway, quietly padding past Wanda and Pietro’s doors as he heads downstairs. He can see that the kitchen light is already on, which likely means his father is still up, and, sure enough, Steve finds him sitting at the kitchen island with a mug of tea sitting on the counter in front of him. His father has his head bent over his phone in front of him, but considering the screen is off when he lifts his head to look at Steve, he was probably just lost in thought. Steve doesn’t blame him. It’s probably the reason the man is up at all, just as Steve is, which is likely why his father doesn’t seem surprised to see him up, too.

The kettle is still hot when Steve picks it up, so he pours some in a mug and grabs a packet of chamomile tea from the box that Wanda keeps stocked in his pantry.

“So, you and Nat, huh?” his father asks once Steve is sitting in the barstool next to his, and a laugh bursts from Steve as he tears at the packet, dunking the tea bag into his mug. His father chuckles, too, shaking his head a little at himself, and maybe also at the strangeness of the moment. Not because it’s the two of them talking alone, when that hasn’t really happened much before, but because, out of all the things he could’ve asked about after the last few hours – hell, after the last few _months_ – this is what he picks.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and maybe he should feel like an idiot for smiling so widely, but he honestly doesn’t care and he knows his father doesn’t, either.

In fact, his father’s mouth hitches as his smile widens a little, too. But his eyes soften a little as he asks, “How’s she holding up?”

Steve pauses as he considers this, toying with the string of the tea bag hanging over the rim of his mug. He thinks about the way Natasha had held onto him in her kitchen when he’d pulled her against his chest, squeezing him close but yet not quite clinging to him, either. “I think maybe it hasn’t entirely hit her just yet,” he admits, because he thinks that’s the truth. She hadn’t seemed particularly shocked when they had dinner at her apartment with their parents; she simply seemed _tired_ , and maybe a little distracted, like she couldn’t help her thoughts pulling her away from the conversation every now and then. “But I don’t think her entire world has been knocked out of place.”

His father nods at this. Considering he’s known Natasha her whole life, he’d probably know how to interpret her reactions pretty damn well, too.

“Honestly, I didn’t think it would be,” his father tells him, rubbing a hand over his hair. “But we didn’t want to minimize how big of a secret it was to keep from her, either.”

 _We_. As in, him and Melina and Edward, maybe even Howard and Maria, too, since Steve doubts Howard would’ve kept this from his wife this entire time.

“Why did you and Melina pretend not to have known each other from before?” Steve asks. It’s not an accusation, and he knows his father won’t take it as one, and though Steve already has an idea of the answer, he figures he might as well ask, anyway, now that all of this is out in the open.

“I think it was instinct, mostly.” His father’s smile turns a little wry as he looks at Steve. “We’d gotten pretty good at downplaying how close we were with each other and with Alia back in Russia, even before Ivan started actively threatening me. When Edward brought her to New York and I saw her again after all those years, it was like a reflex. I’d missed her—missed both of them—but there really wouldn’t be a reason for me to have known a woman who’d never stepped foot in the States before. The Family knew I was adopted, but not from _where_. Your grandparents kept it under lock and key because Ivan was on a manhunt, and even after he’d stopped, we didn’t want to risk any slip ups.”

Steve nods at this. “Did you ever plan on telling her, or any of us?”

“We debated on it for years,” his father admits with an exhale. “It made sense not to when you were all younger, but there were several times later on that could’ve been right that we just didn’t say anything. I don’t think it was any one thing or any one reason. But it was more about how _we_ felt about it and about bringing it up. You all had the right to know the truth, especially when it could’ve put you in danger, just like Natasha had been today. That’s on us,” his father adds, swallowing roughly with a shake of his head.

“Dad,” Steve says, his voice low and a little rough, too. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.”

He’s not just saying that to comfort his father, but because Steve genuinely believes it. Yeah, his father had a point; if he’d never sent Yelena to warn them before Yuri got to New York, they wouldn’t have had an edge over him.

But the truth _had_ come out when they needed it, not when it was too late to help anyone, and it was so much more than just keeping Natasha’s birth mother or keeping his father’s past a secret from their own children. His father had to _flee_ the only home and the only family he’d ever known at only thirteen because a man almost twice his age was threatened by his friendship with the girl he wanted, and Melina had to leave her best friend behind, knowing she would’ve likely been dead once Ivan found her. And it wasn’t just that, either. Melina must’ve been terrified of what Ivan would do to Alia for running in the first place, but Alia begged her to keep her daughter safe, and so Melina honored her plea. Even Edward, who had only known Alia for a short while, had to have been affected at leaving the mother of his child behind right after she’d given birth.

If telling the truth meant having to relive those memories, Steve would’ve been incredibly hesitant of it, too. That’s not something he or Nat, or Wanda or Pietro, would hold against their parents.

“Your mother knew, though,” his father adds after a moment, and Steve feels his heart trip in his chest as he stares back at his father. “She was the first to meet Melina.”

Steve feels his eyebrows furrow at this. He’s a few years older than Natasha, but not by much, which meant… “I thought you’d stopped seeing me and Mom by then?”

His father nods. “I had. We thought it would be safer, not just because of the Family, but also because I never knew for sure if Ivan was still looking for me. I also knew it was a lot for your mother to take in general, even if she’d never say it. She never would’ve asked to keep you away from me, but I knew she needed it to be that way, at least for a little while.” He rubs his lips together, looking Steve in the eyes as he adds, “I know that wasn’t a choice I should’ve made for her, for _you_. And to this day, I still wonder if it was the wrong one. I knew your mother was a tough person, tougher than both of us, but maybe I’d underestimated what she was _willing_ to bear for me,” he admits quietly.

Steve doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until it comes out in a sharp exhale. “You thought she wouldn’t want to handle this life?” Steve asks.

His father rubs at his jaw, seeming to contemplate this. “I wondered a lot of things. Your mother was too good for this world from the beginning, but she’d also known who I was when we met. She’d chosen to trust me, and I respected her and her choice. I loved her. But I knew it all bothered her to some extent, especially when you came along.”

Steve swallows lightly. He’d like to believe his mother could’ve handled anything, but he also knows firsthand that this world is a lot at first glance. It’s still a lot once you’re on the inside, too, but his mother had been young and had her child to think of. She genuinely loved his father, but that didn’t mean she had to love his lifestyle, too.

And he knows his mother. If she let his father convince her that keeping Steve and herself from him and the Family was for the best, it was because part of her had believed it, too. If she wanted to raise Steve in this lifestyle for whatever reason that may have been, she would’ve fought her father like hell to stay and she would’ve won, too.

Like he said: she was tougher than both of them.

“How did she meet Melina, then?” Steve asks after a moment, already feeling a smile tug at his lips. He knows without a doubt his mother probably loved Melina.

She would’ve loved Natasha, too.

“By pure chance, actually,” his father answers, his own smile widening, too, as he glances down into his tea at the memory. “Your mother recognized Melina from the photograph I had and knew of her from the stories I told her, and we happened to run into each other in Brooklyn. It was the one and only time your mother and I had approached each other since we agreed to keep our distance. And they loved each other, of course, but I knew they would. You’d think _they_ were the childhood friends.”

Steve chuckles at this, feeling a warmth squeeze at his chest. Somehow, he could almost picture the memory perfectly.

“Your mother and Alia would’ve loved each other, too,” his father adds, his smile softening as Steve stares back at him. “And Alia would’ve loved you.”

Steve reaches over, placing a hand on his father’s shoulder, and his father lifts his hand to grip Steve’s. “I would’ve loved her, too,” Steve says, giving him a squeeze, and his father lets out a breathy laugh as he nods.

... ...

She can feel Steve’s hand at her hip, his fingers calloused yet gentle and teasing as they toy with the hem of his shirt on her. Natasha had rolled onto her back sometime during the night, her shoulder practically pressing against Steve’s chest, and she feels her lips pull into a soft smile as he inches her shirt higher up her body, making her stomach flutter just under his palm when he splays his fingers over her skin. Then he dips his head to press a kiss to her cheek, her jaw, the column of her neck, feeling her pulse thrum under his lips, and she makes a soft noise when he hand dips down, fingers slipping under the waistband of her panties and pulling them down over one hip.

“ _Steve_ ,” she breathes, feeling his mouth curve into a grin against her collarbone, and then his fingers hook under the other side of her panties, too, pulling them down her legs and then off entirely.

“Good morning,” he says into her skin, and she feels her smile widen, feels him nudge her legs open as his body slides down hers. He pushes her shirt up a little higher, kisses over one of her ribs, brushes his lips against an old scar on her other hip, and then his face is pressed against the inside of one of her thighs, lips quirking into a smile.

Her eyelashes flutter open as she lifts herself up on her elbows, glancing down to where Steve is settled between her legs, pressing one into the mattress as he pulls the other over his shoulders. She can already feel her breaths coming in a little shorter and shallower, feel her heart beating a little faster, even as a slow, almost lazy sort of smirk pulls at her lips as she meets his gaze. His mouth is hitched in that crooked, boyish sort of smile she’s come to love, but there’s nothing teasing about the heavy look in his eyes.

Under the darkening arousal, she can see the pure adoration in his gaze, reflecting her own. She knows, realistically, it’s only been a few days—but she can’t really remember what it was like to wake up without Steve beside her, to fall asleep to his large, warm body curling over hers, and she doesn’t _want_ to remember, either.

“Good morning,” she breathes, reaching down to cup his jaw, rubbing her thumb against the corner of his mouth as it widens just a little more.

Then he’s dipping down, licking into where she’s warm and already a little wet for him, and she sucks in a breath, trapping it in her chest as her eyelashes flutter. She keeps her hand on his jaw, rubbing the budding stubble there, feeling it flex with every pass of his tongue against her, every little groan and lick and nibble, and it almost makes it feel heightened, somehow. She’s not quite holding onto him, but still, it feels as if he presses in closer at the exact moment her fingers twitch to drag him in, feels as if his licks linger when his tongue slides over a particularly sensitive spot that has her hand trembling to twist into his hair. She keeps her gaze on him as her vision grows blurry and her eyelids grow heavy, and then his eyes lick up to hers, sucking at her little bundle of nerves, and her head almost falls back as her body gently arches off of the bed.

He sucks at it again, her elbow nearly sliding out from under her, and then his tongue dips down and into her, and her lips part in a soft moan. And then his lips slide back up before she can find a rhythm, teasing her, tongue flicking against her hard bud right before he sucks it again, and she twists her neck to press her face into the pillow.

Again, and again, and _again_ he works his mouth over her, groaning with her every little shift, sending delicious vibrations _everywhere_ as she arches and rolls her hips—

And she doesn’t know if this morning feels different because of what happened yesterday, or if _they_ feel different, but already it feels like too much, too fast, and she practically smothers herself with his pillow to muffle her voice as she bursts apart at the seams. White-hot pleasure crashes over her, rushing through her as he holds her to him, and she twists one hand into his sheets, the other braced against his headboard as she rides out her high and he coaxes every last drop of it out of her with a long groan.

Then he eases his mouth off of her, sliding his hands gently up and down her thighs, over her hips, almost soothing her as she shudders delicately from the pleasure. He kisses up her flushed skin, his lips brushing against almost every inch of it along the way, letting her catch her breath as he settles back over her.

He presses his face into her neck as she wraps her arms around his torso, kissing her there, too, and she lightly digs her nails into the muscles in his back.

“Good morning,” he says again, drawing a breathy chuckle from her that quickly dissolves into moan as she feels him between their bodies, hard and pressing right against her little bundle of nerves. His hand curves over her hip, gripping as he presses at her entrance, and then her body arches as best as it can under his as he slides in. She sinks her nails into his back a little harder as he sinks into her a little deeper, pausing as he slips all the way, and then his other hand is braced against the mattress, his mouth slanting over hers as he starts to move, and she very nearly whimpers into the kiss as he sweeps his tongue into her mouth at the same second he snaps his hips harder against hers.

They try to be slow at first, to savor it, but within seconds their kiss quickens, and then so do their bodies as they move against each other. Her chest squeezes, her lungs starting to sting just a little bit because she needs to take a breath, but she doesn’t pull away, not yet.

Not until a few moments later, when her second orgasm bursts through her, almost taking her by surprise as she twists her lips away from his to suck in a shaky breath. Pleasure rushes through her again, a little harder and a little faster now, her lips parting in a moan that seems trapped in her chest as she shudders under the white-hot waves crashing over her. He kisses her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, groaning words into her skin that she can’t quite hear over the blood pounding in her ears, but then she feels his body growing taut above hers, his hips growing more urgent, until he stiffens and buries his face into her neck, teeth sinking into her skin as his groans out in his release.

It’s a long, few moments before Natasha feels her breaths finally start to even out, feels his body finally start to ease above her, and then his tongue darts out, licking at the indent of his teeth in her skin before he lifts his head to peer down at her.

“A girl could get used to a wake-up call like that,” she breathes out, and even though her voice is light and teasing, she knows there’s something _more_ in her own words.

And she knows that Steve can hear it, too, because the warmth fluttering in her chest is reflected in his eyes as he smiles down at her. He replies with a teasing, “I’ll keep that in mind,” but she can hear the promise in his voice, and she’s smiling when he dips his head down to kiss her.

... ...

“Hey, soldier,” a voice whispers in his ear, warm and teasing, and Steve feels his lips twitch into a grin as Natasha slides onto the stool beside his, setting an empty glass on the bar counter. He spins his barstool to face her, rubs his lips together in vain to hide his amusement, but even if he could manage a poker face around Nat, she’d still see it in his eyes that he doesn’t find her new little joke as annoying as he sometimes pretends. Somehow, she’d decided that his father being back to take over as head of the Family meant that Steve was no more than a soldier now, or _less_ , considering he wasn’t technically a “made” man, and honestly? Steve is far more amused by how much delight Natasha takes in her own joke than the actual joke itself. “Can I buy a man a drink?” she asks, setting her hands atop his knees to lean in and brush a kiss to his lips.

“The drinks are free,” Steve points out, arching an eyebrow, and Natasha smirks, her eyes bright with amusement.

He remembers how she’d had that same twinkle in her eyes when they first met right in this restaurant, almost at this very spot at the bar just a few months ago. The place had been closed that day, too, though rather than catching it between the lunch and dinner rush, the restaurant is closed for the rest of the night.

And technically speaking, it’s closed for _them_ , though Steve is starting to realize that the Family will find any and every excuse to gather together and celebrate.

“Shouldn’t you two be over there?” Pietro chimes in from behind the bar, pouring more water into Natasha’s empty glass before gesturing at the dining room filled with the rest of the Family, loud with excited chatter and the sound of the kids screaming. “Of course, if Howard is retelling how he kicked Anton’s ass, I’d be hiding here, too.”

Steve breathes out a laugh. Over a month later and both Howard and Tony still manage to bring up the story of officially kicking Anton and Ivan out of the state—hell, damn near out of the _country_ —but then again, considering Anton had been a fundamental part of Stark Industries from the ground up, Steve doubts Howard will get over it anytime soon, or _ever_. Even if Howard had only really tolerated Anton these last few years, knowing that he had been betrayed for so long was a hard thing to get over. Howard may be more pissed than anything else right now, but some part of him is _upset_ , too, just as Odin and Frigga must have been upset that Hela had been behind all the ambushes.

Steve half-expected Odin to argue against banning Hela from New York, but he had practically demanded to do it himself. Odin had been furious with his daughter, but at the end of the day, she’s still his daughter, and it’s probably easier for Odin to focus on her betrayal and her recklessness more than anything else.

“It’s a good story,” Sam comments, dropping into the stool on the other side of Nat, pulling Maria between his knees as she sips on the tumbler of rum in her hand.

“You only like it because you’re in it,” Maria retorts, and Sam hides his grin against her shoulder as she rolls her eyes, her lips twitching at the corners in a smirk. “Although, it does make for quite a tale. Two cops joining in on an old-fashioned mafia shakedown and chase? I still say you should let me publish an anonymous article on it.”

Sam just chuckles, knowing there’s no genuine threat behind her words, and then something catches his eye that makes him sit up a little straighter, flashing his teeth in a smile as he asks, “And where might you two be coming from?”

Steve turns to look over his shoulder as Wanda and Bucky step out from the kitchen, his sister tucked under his best friend’s arm. He has his head bent close to hers, likely to whisper something in her ear, but he straightens up at Sam’s comment, pressing his lips together as he shakes his head. Wanda’s cheeks are flushed, and yes, maybe Steve would feel wary about that, except he already has a pretty good idea on why Bucky might’ve wanted to steal Wanda away for a little while. He’d come to Steve and his father earlier that week about wanting Wanda to move in with him, not because he had been asking for permission or anything, because in the end, whatever she wanted was what he was going to give her, even if her father and brother were wary of it. But he’d wanted their honest opinion on whether they thought it would be too much, too fast for her.

Had it been a few weeks before, maybe it _would_ have been. Steve still remembers how his sister sat in his kitchen and admitted that she didn’t see things going further between them. Even if he didn’t care about her being a mafia princess, she’d been worried about the Family never quite accepting him. But if Sam and Bucky helping to protect Wanda hadn’t been enough to earn the Family’s good graces, the evidence that they gathered against Anton, Ivan, and Hela to prove their betrayal would have.

“Pay attention to your own girl, Wilson,” Bucky counters, brushing a kiss to Wanda’s hair as she giggles. She pauses their stride as she turns to them, stretching on her toes to whisper in his ear, and he dips his head to kiss her, quick and hard, earning a half-hearted noise of protest from Pietro that has Wanda pulling away with another giggle.

Then she glides over to Natasha, taking her hand and giving it a tug. “They’re about to start slicing and serving cake, which means we need to do a toast!”

Natasha catches Steve’s gaze as Wanda starts to pull her onto her feet, her eyes sparkling, and Steve gives her a grin, grabbing their glasses as they all head back into the main dining room. It’s louder and warmer, and little Morgan Stark and Nathaniel Barton nearly trip him over as they run by, but it only makes Steve’s grin widen.

He joins Natasha where she’s standing at the head of the long table in the middle of the room, a few dozen faces staring back at them as they take their seats. He peers down at Nat as he hands over her glass, catching the way his mother’s ring twinkles on her finger under the bright glow of the chandeliers. Then he glances around the room, finding his father sitting further down the table, smiling at him from his seat between Howard and Melina. Across from them, Peter nudges Bucky with his elbow as he and Wanda sit with him, Peter whispering something that makes Bucky hide his laugh with a cough, and on his other side, Pepper and Tony laugh as Morgan practically climbs into Sam’s lap.

It quiets down as Steve lifts his glass, curving his hand over Nat’s hip and drawing her close as he thanks them for celebrating with them tonight, asking them to raise their glass in a toast to his father coming home safe, to Pietro’s quick recovery, and to his and Nat’s engagement.

“And to Family,” he finishes, peering down at Natasha.

“To Family,” she echoes, and there are cheers and clinks of utensils against glasses of wine right before his mouth slants against hers in a kiss. Then he feels Natasha smile against his mouth just as she parts their kiss a moment later, turning his head to bring her lips near his ear. “And when exactly do you want to tell them the Family is about to get a little bigger?” she whispers, and Steve breathes out a chuckle, pressing a kiss against her neck. If he thought he could get away with touching her stomach, he would’ve.

“This is the Family we’re talking about, Nat,” he points out, drawing back to catch her bright eyes, a warmth squeezing at his chest. “They probably found out a week ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. If you have an opinion on this, if you darlings wanted a way to interact with me as I become an author, would Instagram be a good option? Do you prefer Twitter instead?
> 
> I know Tumblr is not very reliable these days in showing posts accurately and consistently, so while I'll still keep my Tumblr account, I was wondering what other way you darlings might want to keep connected with me!


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